Content-type: text/html Downes.ca ~ Stephen's Web ~ The use and application of learning theory in learning analytics: a scoping review

Stephen Downes

Knowledge, Learning, Community

The rise of learning analytics has opened anew the question of theory versus data in research. But in a field like education where there is no real agreement on theory, "it is not clear which theories inform our research and praxis... even the notion of 'learning theory' is less definite than might first be thought." Or so it seems; that's what this paper investigates. It becomes an exercise in how you name things and how you count things. The authors note "the dominance of Self-Regulated Learning (SRL) in informing learning analytics research," but note "theories arising from the broader family of Cognitivism are Cognitive Load Theory, Cognitive Theory, Meta-cognition, and Distributed Cognition," which were counted separately. It's a good discussion, especially the 'implications' section near the end, but as the authors note, "we cannot use these findings to generalize to the whole field of learning analytics," due to the unrepresentative nature of the sample.

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Stephen Downes Stephen Downes, Casselman, Canada
stephen@downes.ca

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Last Updated: Nov 22, 2024 6:29 p.m.

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