Young Students’ Experience of Analytics-Supported CSCL and the Influence of Parental Attitudes

Abstract

Being recognized as a research priority in the computer-supported collaborative learning (CSCL) community, learning analytics (LA) help harvest and make sense of empirical evidence of students’ collaborative learning. Given that prior investigations on LA-supported CSCL largely focused on university classrooms, implementation of LA for facilitating wiki-based CSCL environments in primary education is rarely explored. The focus on school-aged children also brings about the consideration of their parents’ attitudes. This study aims to examine primary school students’ experience of LA-supported CSCL and how their self-perceived parents’ attitudes towards their use of digital technology influence their learning experience. Survey, wiki logs and interview data were collected from 46 students and three teachers involved in LA-supported wiki-based group inquiry projects. Results show that after receiving LA support, students’ perceptions of inquiry-based learning and those of wiki-supported learning improved while they were less positive towards collaborative learning. In the meantime, it is found that, from students’ perspective, their parents’ awareness of the purpose of their mobile usage was negatively correlated with students’ participation on wiki. Discussion and implications were drawn.