Generative AI (GenAI) has the potential to revolutionize the analysis of educational data, significantly impacting learning analytics (LA). This study explores the capability of non-experts, including administrators, instructors, and students, to effectively use GenAI for descriptive LA tasks without requiring specialized knowledge in data…

Collaboration is a complex, multidimensional process; however, details of how multimodal features intersect and mediate group interactions have not been fully unpacked. Characterizing and analyzing the temporal patterns based on multimodal features is a challenging yet important work to advance our understanding of computer-supported collaborative…

Recent research on learning analytics dashboards has focused on designing user interfaces that offer various forms of "visualization guidance" (often referring to notions such as "data storytelling" or "narrative visualization") to teachers (e.g., emphasizing data points or trends with colour and adding annotations),…

Data is flexible in that it is molded by not only the features and variables available to a researcher for analysis and interpretation, but also by how those features and variables are recorded and processed prior to evaluation. "Big Data" from online learning platforms and intelligent tutoring systems is no different. The work presented…

Model evaluation -- the process of making inferences about the performance of predictive models -- is a critical component of predictive modelling research in learning analytics. We survey the state of the practice with respect to model evaluation in learning analytics, which overwhelmingly uses only naïve methods for model evaluation or…

This paper reports on a study to predict students at risk of failing based on data available prior to commencement of first year. The study was conducted over three years, 2010 to 2012, on a student population from a range of academic disciplines, n=1,207. Data was gathered from both student enrollment data and an online, self-reporting,…

Designing learning experiences that support the development of coherent understanding of complex scientific phenomena is challenging. We sought to identify analytics that can also guide such designs to support retention of coherent understanding. Based on prior research that distributing study of material over time supports retention, we explored…

Learning analysts often consider whether learning processes across time are related (1) to one another or (2) to learning outcomes at higher levels. For example, are a group's temporal sequences of talk (e.g., correct evaluation [right arrow] correct, new idea) during its problem solving related to its group solution? I show how to address these…

The statistics used in education research are based on central trends such as the mean or standard deviation, discarding outliers. This paper adopts another viewpoint that has emerged in statistics, called extreme value theory (EVT). EVT claims that the bulk of normal distribution is comprised mainly of uninteresting variations while the most…

Engineering design is a complex process both for students to participate in and for instructors to assess. Informed designers use the key strategy of conducting experiments as they test ideas to inform next steps. Conversely, beginning designers experiment less, often with confounding variables. These behaviours are not easy to assess in…

There is an increasing interest in developing learning analytic techniques for the analysis, and support of, high-quality learning discourse. This paper maps the terrain of discourse-centric learning analytics (DCLA), outlining the distinctive contribution of DCLA and outlining a definition for the field moving forwards. It is our claim that DCLA…