Being more human: rooting learning analytics through resistance and reconnection with the values of higher education
Parkes, Sarah, Benkwitz, Adam, Bardy, Helen, Myler, Kerry S and Peters, John (2020) Being more human: rooting learning analytics through resistance and reconnection with the values of higher education. Higher Education Research & Development, 39 (1). pp. 113-126. ISSN 0729-4360
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Abstract
Universities are now compelled to attend to metrics that (re)shape our conceptualisation of the student experience. New technologies such as learning analytics (LA) promise the ability to target personalised support to profiled ‘at risk’ students through mapping large-scale historic student engagement data such as attendance, library use, and virtual learning environment activity as well as demographic information and typical student outcomes. Yet serious ethical and implementation issues remain. Data-driven labelling of students as ‘high risk’, ‘hard to reach’ or ‘vulnerable’ creates conflict between promoting personal growth and human flourishing and treating people merely as data points. This article argues that universities must resist the assumption that numbers and algorithms alone can solve the ‘problem’ of student retention and performance; rather, LA work must be underpinned by a reconnection with the agreed values relating to the purpose of higher education, including democratic engagement, recognition of diverse and individual experience, and processes of becoming. Such a reconnection, this article contends, is possible when LA work is designed and implemented in genuine collaboration and partnership with students.
| Item Type: | Article |
|---|---|
| Divisions: | Directorate > PVC Formative Education |
| Depositing User: | Ms Hazel Barham |
| Date Deposited: | 30 Jun 2021 15:18 |
| Last Modified: | 04 Jul 2021 04:00 |
| URI: | https://newman.repository.guildhe.ac.uk/id/eprint/17307 |
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