Attentional and cognitive processing of analytics visualisations: Can design features affect interpretations and decisions about learning and teaching?

摘要

There has been an increasing demand for course-level learning analytics to inform designimprovements and interventions. While there has been an increasing research and developmentfocus on dashboards to facilitate this, less has been done to investigate the impact of designfeatures on optimising the interpretation process when translating learning analytics intoactionable interventions and design changes. In this paper, I assess the effect of two prominentdesign features on the attentional and cognitive processes when using learning analytics at thecourse level. Emergent thematic analysis revealed response patterns suggesting systematic effectsof three design features (course-only data, course- versus school-level data, course-only data withlearning events marked) on the interpretive patterns, proposed actions, and consequential thinkingof participants in the study. Implications for future designs of course-level learning analyticsdashboards, as well as academic development are discussed.