Beyond Clickometry: Analytics for Constructivist Pedagogies
Author | Aleksander Dietrichson |
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Publication | International Journal on E-Learning |
Date | 2013 |
Link | http://www.editlib.org/p/38478/ |
File |
Paper link, Details |
Learning analytics has become a topic of much fundamental research in recent years. Researchers and educators are coming to terms with the collective data that is available to them and determining what can be done with such data.
In his paper, titled "Beyond Clickometry: Analytics for Constructivist Pedagogies", Aleksander Dietrichson explores the data available from an LMS (Learning Management System).
The key point of the paper is that past studies have relied heavily on behavioural log data, but by estimation, this constitutes only 15% of the relevant data available from an LMS, such as Moodle; the other 85% being constituted of unstructured data that represents user content.
"Only about 15% of all data stored is stored in a structured format allowing for easy analysis. The remaining 85% is unstructured data and often go un-analyzed."
In order to achieve a constructivist pedagogy, the analysis of the interactions among students needs to be "enhanced" by the inclusion of both behavioural and unstructured data, according to Dietrichson, who provides evidence from a case study to back this up.
"While sophisticated clickometry certainly has a place in the realm on LMS analytics, it needs to take its place alongside methodologies more suited to evaluating the pedagogical processes practitioners aspire to facilitate in their on-line courses."