Perceiving Learning at a Glance: A Systematic Literature Review of Learning Dashboard Research

TLDR

Learning dashboards aim to identify meaningful data for stakeholders and present it to support sense‑making, and their popularity is driven by widespread use of LMS and MOOCs. This systematic review seeks to map the state of research on learning dashboards in Learning Analytics and Educational Data Mining, and to highlight the need for longitudinal studies and comparative design evaluations. The authors searched five major academic databases and Google Scholar, identified 346 papers, and selected 55 for analysis, categorizing studies by type, dashboard aspects, and evaluation maturity. The field remains nascent, with most studies exploratory or proof‑of‑concept, and the review proposes a definition of learning dashboards while outlining open issues and future research directions.

Abstract

This paper presents a systematic literature review of the state-of-the-art of research on learning dashboards in the fields of Learning Analytics and Educational Data Mining. Research on learning dashboards aims to identify what data is meaningful to different stakeholders and how data can be presented to support sense-making processes. Learning dashboards are becoming popular due to the increased use of educational technologies, such as Learning Management Systems (LMS) and Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs). The initial search of five main academic databases and GScholar resulted in 346 papers out of which 55 papers were included in the final analysis. Our review distinguishes different kinds of research studies as well as various aspects of learning dashboards and their maturity regarding evaluation. As the research field is still relatively young, most studies are exploratory and proof-of-concept. The review concludes by offering a definition for learning dashboards and by outlining open issues and future lines of work in the area of learning dashboards. There is a need for longitudinal research in authentic settings and studies that systematically compare different dashboard designs.