Empowering learners with personalised learning approaches? Agency, equity and transparency in the context of learning analytics

Abstract

The emergence of personalised data technologies such as learning analytics is framed as a solution to manage the needs of higher education student populations that are growing ever more diverse and larger in size. However, the current approach to learning analytics presents tensions between increasing student agency in making learning-related decisions and ‘datafying’ students in the process of collecting, analysing and interpreting data. This article presents a study that explores staff and student experience of agency, equity and transparency in existing data practices and expectations towards learning analytics in a UK university. The results show a number of intertwined factors that have contributed to the tensions between enhancing a learner’s control of their studies and, at the same time, diminishing their autonomy as an active agent in the process of learning analytics. This article argues that learner empowerment should not be automatically assumed to have taken place as part of the adoption of learning analytics. Instead, the interwoven power relationships in a complex educational system and the interactions between humans and machines need to be taken into consideration when presenting learning analytics as an equitable process to enhance student agency and educational equity.

Keywords:

• Learning analytics
• agency
• equity
• transparency

Acknowledgements

The European Commission support for the production of this publication does not constitute an endorsement of the contents which reflects the views only of the authors, and the Commission will not be held responsible for any use which may be made of the information contained therein. We would like to thank the participants who participated in the study and contributed their opinions.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Erasmus + Programme of the European Union [562080-EPP- 1-2015-1-BE-EPPKA3-PI-FORWARD].