Learning analytics at Leeds: Supporting students with low engagement

This seminar, led by Dr Bronwen Swinnerton (LITE Fellow in Learning Analytics) and Emily Towler (Digital Learning Advisor), will report on a research project funded by LITE and Research England, focusing on the use of Learning Analytics to understand low engagement and how interventions can be used to support students, as well as student perceptions of the process. Lunch will be served from 12, with the seminar getting underway at approximately 12:15.

The seminar will provide an overview of StREAM@Leeds, the learning analytics system used across the institution. Learning analytics uses data from student interactions with digital resources and systems to measure digital engagement. We will report on the use of the system to locate students with low digital engagement across several 12 pilot schools during the academic year 2021-22 and how students have responded to low engagement interventions in the form of pastoral emails. The presentation will report on findings from both a survey sent to students receiving this type of email and the findings from interviews with a subset of these students. The research project is a collaboration between Emily Towler, Alex Kingston and Bronwen Swinnerton, all of whom, at the time, were working to support the implementation and evaluation of the Learning Analytics system. 

For more information on the use of Learning Analytics at Leeds see this recent case study. For more information about using a data-driven approach to support students see this Jisc blog from Edward Peck (VC, Nottingham Trent University).