Ce travail s’inscrit dans une problématique générale de l’analytique de l’apprentissage numérique et particulièrement dans le contexte du projet ANR HUBBLE, un observatoire national permettant le dépôt de processus d’analyse de haut niveau. Nous nous intéressons principalement à la communication des données d’analyse aux utilisateurs en mettant à leur disposition des tableaux de bord d'apprentissage (TBA). Notre problématique porte sur l’identification de structures génériques dans le but de générer dynamiquement des TBA sur mesure. Ces structures doivent être à la fois génériques et adaptables aux besoins d’utilisateurs. Les travaux existants proposent le plus souvent des TBA trop généraux ou développés de manière adhoc. Au travers du projet HUBBLE, nous souhaitons exploiter les décisions des utilisateurs pour générer dynamiquement des TBA. Nous nous sommes intéressés au domaine de l’informatique décisionnelle en raison de la place des tableaux de bord dans leur processus. La prise de décision exige une compréhension explicite des besoins des utilisateurs. C'est pourquoi nous avons adopté une approche de conception centrée sur l'utilisateur dans le but de lui fournir des TBA adaptés. Nous proposons aussi un processus de capture des besoins qui a permis l’élaboration de nos modèles (indicateur, moyens de visualisation, utilisateur, …). Ces derniers sont utilisés par un processus de génération implémenté dans un prototype de générateur dynamique. Nous avons procédé à une phase d'évaluation itérative dont l’objectif est d'affiner nos modèles et de valider l'efficacité de notre processus de génération ainsi que de démontrer l'impact de la décision sur la génération des TBA. / This work is part of a broader issue of Learning Analytics (LA). It is particularly carried out within the context of the HUBBLE project, a national observatory for the design and sharing of data analysis processes. We are interested in communicating data analysis results to users by providing LA dashboards (LAD). Our main issue is the identification of generic LAD structures in order to generate dynamically tailored LAD. These structures must be generic to ensure their reuse, and adaptable to users’ needs. Existing works proposed LAD which remains too general or developed in an adhoc way. According to the HUBBLE project, we want to use identified decisions of end-users to generate dynamically our LAD. We were interested in the business intelligence area because of the place of dashboards in the decision-making process. Decision-making requires an explicit understanding of user needs. That's why we have adopted a user-centered design (UCD) approach to generate adapted LAD. We propose a new process for capturing end-users’ needs, in order to elaborate some models (Indicator, visualization means, user, pattern, …). These models are used by a generation process implemented in a LAD dynamic generator prototype. We conducted an iterative evaluation phase. The objective is to refine our models and validate the efficiency of our generation process. The second iteration demonstrates the impact of the decision on the LAD generation. Thus, we can confirm that the decision is considered as a central element for the generation of LADs.

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No. of bitstreams: 1 Cleber Portal_.pdf: 1881529 bytes, checksum: aa34b82855518c0d808e9a3ab2e103e0 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2016-02-29 / CAPES - Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior / A presente dissertação de mestrado, desenvolvida no contexto do Grupo de Pesquisa Educação Digital GPe-dU UNISINOS/CNPq, vinculada à Linha de Pesquisa Educação, Desenvolvimento e Tecnologias do Programa de Pós-Graduação em Educação, investigou como são elaboradas as estratégias utilizadas pelos diferentes atores envolvidos no contexto da Educação a Distância (EaD), para minimizar a evasão e potencializar a permanência dos estudantes nessa modalidade, tendo como subsídios um conjunto de informações e indicadores gerados por um sistema, o GVWise, que faz uso de mineração de dados e Learning Analytics. A pesquisa é exploratória, de natureza qualitativa. Fundamenta-se na Teoria Ator-Rede (LATOUR, 2012) e faz uso da metodologia da cartografia das controvérsias. (LATOUR, 2012). Envolve, ainda, uma análise documental nos registros do sistema – ator não humano - ANH e entrevistas semi-estruturadas com os atores humanos - AH, em diferentes instâncias: coordenadores vinculados à gestão da EaD e aos cursos de graduação, professores e tutores dos respectivos cursos. O objetivo principal consistiu em compreender de que forma as informações fornecidas pelo sistema estão sendo compreendidas pelos diferentes atores, bem como perceber se as articulações dessas informações estão sendo eficientes no sentido de contribuir para a criação de estratégias que possam minimizar a evasão e potencializar a permanência dos estudantes nessa modalidade. Os principais resultados obtidos indicam, no que se refere ao ANH – sistema, que esse fornece um conjunto de informações, as quais, quando articuladas, evidenciam que a maior evasão ocorre antes da avaliação, ou seja, da realização dos Graus B e C. No que se refere aos AH da gestão em EaD e dos cursos, bem como os professores e tutores, os resultados evidenciam compreensões distintas e singulares sobre a evasão e a permanência, bem como sobre a forma de articular as informações fornecidas pelo sistema, na criação de estratégias para minimizar a evasão e potencializar a permanência do estudante na EaD, embora esses AH integrem a mesma equipe mas com funções diferentes. Esse resultado se manifesta como controvérsia, as quais são acessadas por meio da abertura das caixas pretas, no momento em que esses atores são instigados a refletir sobre as estratégias utilizadas. As relações dos AH se apresentam distanciadas uns dos outros, principalmente na disciplina de maior evasão. Produzem uma comunicação pouco eficiente ou ineficiente, gerando obstáculos no campo metodológico da disciplina, dificultando possíveis mudanças positivas e restringindo o desenvolvimento dos processos pedagógicos. A estratégia de contatar o AH estudante, se usado de forma adequada, pode colaborar e abrir possibilidades para a melhor compreensão do fenômeno da evasão e ampliação da visão estratégica institucional. Como principal contribuição da dissertação apresenta-se o diagrama das mediações, ou seja, o desenho da distribuição da mobilidade, os movimentos na construção, na busca por uma estratégia que possa minimizar a evasão e potencializar a permanência do estudante em EaD. / The currrent dissertation of Master’s Degree, developed in the context of Grupo de Pesquisa Educação Digital GPe-dU UNISINOS/CNPq (Research Group on Digital Education GPe-dU UNISINOS/CNPq) bound to Linha de Pesquisa Educação, Desenvolvimento e Tecnologias do Programa de Pós-Graduação em Educação (Line of Research Education, Development and Technologies of the Program of Postgraduate in Education) investigated how the strategies used were made by different actors, enfolded in the context of Distance Education (EaD) to minimize evasion and potentiate the permanence of students in this modality, having as subsidy a set of information and indexes generated by a system, the oGVWise, which makes use of data mining and Learning Analytics. The research is exploratory, of qualitative nature, having as a basis the Teoria Ator-Rede (the Actor-Net Theory) (LATOUR, 2012) and makes use of the methodology of the cartography of controversies.(LATOUR, 2012). It still enfolds a documental analysis in the registers of the system – non human actor – NHA, and semi-structured interviews with the human actors – HA, in different instances: Coordinators bound to the managements of EaD and to the courses of graduation, professors and tutors of the related courses. The main goal consisted in understanding how information given by the system are being understood by different actors, as well in noticing if the articulations of these information are being efficient in the sense of contributing to the creation of strategies that might minimize the evasion and potentiate the permanence of students in this modality. The main results obtained indicate, in what relates to NHA – system, that this one gives a set of information, which when articulated, give evidence that the major evasion happens before the evaluations, it means, of the accomplishment of Degrees B and C. Relating to HA of management in EaD and of the courses, as well as the professors and tutors, the results give evidence to different and singular comprehensions on evasion and permanence, as well as on the way of articulating the information given by the system, on the making of strategies to minimize evasion and potentiate the permanence of the student in EaD, however these HA integrate the same team. This result is manifested as controversy, which are accessed by means of opening the black boxes, in the moment that these actors are instigated to reflect on the used strategies. There is is a detachment among HA, mainly in the discipline of major evasion, that produce little efficient communication or inefficient generating obstacles in the methodological field of the subject, making difficult possible positive changes and restraining the development of pedagogical processes. The strategy of contacting a HA student, if a proper way is used, might collaborate and open possibilities to the comprehension of the phenomenon of evasion and enlargement of the institutional strategic vision. As main contribution of the dissertation the diagram of mediations is presented, it means, the design of the distribution of mobility, the movements of construction, the search for a strategy that might minimize evasion and potentiate the permanence of the student in EaD.

For many years universities communicated generic graduate attributes (e.g. global citizenship) their students have acquired after studying. Graduate attributes are skills and competencies that are relevant for both employability and other aspects of life (Barrie, 2004). Over the past years and due to the Bologna Process, the focus on competencies has also found its way into universities' curricula. As a consequence, curricula were adapted in order to convey students both in-depth knowledge of a particular area as well as generic competences (Bologna Working Group on Qualifications Framework, 2005, Appendix 8). For example, students with a Master's degree should be able to “communicate their conclusions, and the knowledge and rationale underpinning these, to specialist and non-specialist audiences clearly and unambiguously” (p. 196). This shift has been supported by the demand of the labour market for students that have achieved social and personal competencies, in addition to in-depth knowledge (Heidenreich, 2011). On course level, this placed emphasis on collaborative learning, which had led to “greater autonomy for the learner, but also to greater emphasis on active learning, with creation, communication and participation” (Downes, 2005). The shift to collaborative learning has been supported by existing learning theories and models (Brown et al., 1989; Lave and Wenger, 1991; Vygotsky, 1978), which could explain the educational advantages. For example, collaborative learning has proved to promote critical thinking and communications skills (Johnson and Johnson, 1994; Laal and Ghodsi, 2012). As Haythornthwaite (2006) advocates: “collaborative learning holds the promise of active construction of knowledge, enhanced problem articulation, and benefits exploring and sharing information and knowledge gained from peer-to-peer communication” (p. 10). The term collaboration defies clear definition (Dillenbourg, 1999). In this article, cooperation is seen as the division of labour in tasks, which allows group members to work independently, whereas collaboration needs continuous synchronisation and coordination of labour (Dillenbourg et al., 1996; Haythornthwaite, 2006). Therefore, cooperation allows students to subdivide task assignments, work relatively independent, and to piece the results together to one final product. In contrast, collaboration is seen as a synchronous and coordinated effort of all students to accomplish their task assignment resulting in a final product where “no single hand is visible” (Haythornthwaite, 2006, p. 12). Due to the debate about digital natives (Prensky, 2001) and “students' heavy use of technology” in private life (Luo, 2010, p. 32), teachers have started to explore possible applications of modern technology in teaching and learning. Especially wikis have become popular and gained reasonable attention in higher education. Wikis have been used to support collaborative learning (e.g. Cress and Kimmerle, 2008), collaborative writing (e.g. Naismith et al., 2011), and student engagement (e.g. Neumann and Hood, 2009). A wiki is a “freely expandable collection of interlinked Web ‘pages’, a hypertext system for storing and modifying information - a database, where each page is easily editable by any user” (Leuf and Cunningham, 2001, p. 14; italics in original). Thereby, wikis enable the collaborative construction of knowledge (Alexander, 2006). With the intention to take advantage of the benefits connected with collaborative learning, this doctoral thesis focuses on the facilitation of collaboration in wikis to leverage collaborative learning. The doctoral thesis was founded on a constructivist understanding of reality. The research is associated with three different research areas: adoption of IT, computer-supported collaborative learning, and learning analytics. After reviewing existing literature, three focal points were identified that correspond to the research gaps in these research areas: factors influencing students' use of wikis, assessment of collaborative learning, and monitoring of collaboration. The aims of this doctoral thesis were (1) to investigate students' intentions to adopt and barriers to use wikis in higher education, (2) to develop and evaluate a method for assessing computer-supported collaborative learning, and (3) to map educational objectives onto learning-related data in order to establish indicators for collaboration. Based on the research aims, four studies were carried out. Each study raised unique research questions that has been addressed by different methods. Thereby, this doctoral thesis presents findings covering the complete process of the use of wikis to support collaboration and thus provides a holistic view on the use of wikis in higher education.

Les travaux pratiques représentent une composante incontournable de l'apprentissage. Toutefois, leur mise en œuvre au sein de laboratoires physiques requiert des infrastructures souvent coûteuses pour les institutions de formation qui peuvent ainsi difficilement faire face à la forte augmentation du nombre d'étudiants. Dans ce contexte, les laboratoires virtuels et distants (VRL) représentent une alternative pour assurer le passage à l'échelle des activités pratiques à moindre coût. De nombreux travaux de recherche ont émergé au cours de la dernière décennie en se focalisant sur les problématiques techniques et technologiques induites par ces nouveaux usages, telles que la fédération, la standardisation, ou la mutualisation des ressources de laboratoires. Cependant, les récentes revues de littérature du domaine mettent en exergue la nécessité de se préoccuper davantage des facettes pédagogiques liées à ces environnements informatiques innovants dédiés à l'apprentissage pratique. Dans cet objectif, nos travaux exploitent les traces issues des activités réalisées par les apprenants lors de sessions d'apprentissage pratique pour mettre en œuvre les théories socio-constructivistes qui sont au cœur de l'apprentissage exploratoire, et ainsi favoriser l'engagement et le processus de réflexion des étudiants. À partir de la littérature traitant des relations sociales entre apprenants, nous identifions dans un premier temps un ensemble de critères pour la conception de systèmes d'apprentissage pratique engageants. En s'appuyant sur une architecture de cloud computing, nous avons ensuite réalisé Lab4CE, un environnement web pour l'enseignement de l'Informatique capable de masquer la complexité des tâches de gestion des laboratoires, mais surtout d'exposer des capacités éducatives avancées. En effet, Lab4CE repose sur les Learning Analytics pour supporter différentes formes d'apprentissage telles que la collaboration, la coopération ou l'entraide entre pairs, mais également pour fournir des outils d'awareness et de réflexion visant à promouvoir l'apprentissage en profondeur pendant et après les activités pratiques. Plusieurs expérimentations en contexte d'apprentissage réel et présentiel montrent une évaluation positive de Lab4CE par les apprenants en terme d'utilisabilité, qu'ils s'appuient de manière significative sur nos outils d'awareness et de réflexion, mais que des artefacts supplémentaires sont nécessaires pour accroître leur engagement spontané dans des interactions sociales d'apprentissage. De plus, ces expérimentations soulignent l'existence d'une corrélation significative entre l'engagement des étudiants dans la plateforme et les stratégies d'apprentissage qu'ils mettent en œuvre d'une part, et leur performance académique d'autre part. Ces premiers résultats nous permettent d'affirmer que les théories socio-constructivistes sont un levier à l'engagement et à la réflexion dans les VRL. Ils nous invitent à confronter notre approche à d'autres modalités d'apprentissage, mais aussi à intégrer de nouvelles sources d'informations pour approfondir nos analyses du comportement et ainsi renforcer nos contributions à une meilleure prise en compte de l'apprentissage pratique dans les EIAH. / Practical activities, used in exploratory learning, represent a major component of education: they make learners acquire not only knowledge, but also skills and attitude, and they help them bridging the gap between theories and the real world within they are applied. However, the physical laboratories hosting these activities rely on expensive infrastructures that make very difficult for institutions to cope with the high increase of the students' population. Within this context, virtual and remote laboratories (VRL) bring an affordable alternative to provide practical activities at scale. Numerous research works have come up for the last decade; they mainly focused on technological issues such as the federation of remote laboratories, their standardization, or the pooling of the resources they provide. Nevertheless, the recent literature reviews highlight the need to pay more attention to the educational facets of these innovative learning environments. With that purpose in mind, our works make use of the learners' traces collected through their practical learning sessions to sustain socio-constructivist theories, on which practical activities rely on, and thus to engage students in their learning tasks and further their reflection. Starting from the study of scientific research, we identify as a first step a set of criteria required to design practical learning systems that support social interactions between learners. We then developed Lab4CE, a web-based environment for Computer Science education. This environment relies on a cloud computing architecture to provide learners with their own virtual resources, and hides the complexity of the inherent management tasks while offering advanced educational capabilities. Indeed, Lab4CE builds on learning analytics to enable different forms of learning such as collaboration, cooperation, or peer assistance, but also to supply learners as well as teachers awareness and reflection tools that aim at promoting deep learning during and after practical activities. We carried out several experimentations in authentic and hands-on learning contexts. They stressed the fact that learners evaluate positively the usability of Lab4CE, and they significantly rely on our awareness and reflection tools. However, extra artifacts are required to increase their spontaneous engagement in social learning interactions. Moreover, theses experimentations suggested a significant correlation between, on the one hand, student's activity in the environment and the learning strategies they apply and, on the other hand, their academic performance. These first results allow us to assess that socio-constructivist theories leverage engagement and reflection within VRL. They also invite us to put our approach into practice in other learning settings, but also to extend the sources of information to deal with our behavioral analyses in depth, and thus to enhance our contributions regarding the adoption of practical learning within technological environments.

Submitted by Divisão de Documentação/BC Biblioteca Central (ddbc@ufam.edu.br) on 2018-06-04T13:02:42Z No. of bitstreams: 2 license_rdf: 0 bytes, checksum: d41d8cd98f00b204e9800998ecf8427e (MD5) Filipe Dwan.pdf: 3617202 bytes, checksum: 21261ba9c1db7a40af29004bd0bb6f52 (MD5) / Approved for entry into archive by Divisão de Documentação/BC Biblioteca Central (ddbc@ufam.edu.br) on 2018-06-04T13:02:58Z (GMT) No. of bitstreams: 2 license_rdf: 0 bytes, checksum: d41d8cd98f00b204e9800998ecf8427e (MD5) Filipe Dwan.pdf: 3617202 bytes, checksum: 21261ba9c1db7a40af29004bd0bb6f52 (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2018-06-04T13:02:58Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 2 license_rdf: 0 bytes, checksum: d41d8cd98f00b204e9800998ecf8427e (MD5) Filipe Dwan.pdf: 3617202 bytes, checksum: 21261ba9c1db7a40af29004bd0bb6f52 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2018-03-29 / CS1 (first year programming) classes are known to have a high dropout and non-pass rate. Thus, there have been many studies attempting to predict and alleviate CS1 student performance. Knowing about student performance in advance can be useful for many reasons. For example, teachers can apply specific actions to help learners who are struggling, as well as provide more challenging activities to high-achievers. Initial studies used static factors, such as: high school grades, age, gender. However, student behavior is dynamic and, as such, a data-driven approach has been gaining more attention, since many universities are using web-based environments to support CS1 classes. Thereby, many researchers have started extracting student behavior by cleaning data collected from these environments and using them as features in machine learning (ML) models. Recently, the research community has proposed many predictive methods available, even though many of these studies would need to be replicated, to check if they are context-sensitive. Thus, we have collected a set of successful features correlated with the student grade used in related studies, compiling the best ML attributes, as well as adding new features, and applying them on a database representing 486 CS1 students. The set of features was used in ML pipelines which were optimized with two approaches: hyperparameter-tuning with random search and genetic programming. As a result, we achieved an accuracy of 74.44%, using data from the first two weeks to predict student final grade, which outperforms a state-of-the-art research applied to the same dataset. It is also worth noting that from the eighth week of class, the method achieved accuracy between 85% and 90.62%. / Em média, um terço dos alunos no mundo reprova em disciplinas de introdução à programação de computadores (IPC). Assim, muitos estudos vêm sendo conduzidos a fim de inferir o desempenho de estudantes de turmas de IPC. Inicialmente, pesquisadores investigavam a relação das notas dos alunos com fatores estáticos como: notas no ensino médio, gênero, idade e outros. Entretanto, o comportamento dos estudantes é dinâmico e, dessa forma, abordagens orientadas aos dados vêm ganhando atenção, uma vez que muitas universidades utilizam ambientes web para turmas de programação como juízes online. Com efeito, muitos pesquisadores vêm extraindo e tratando os dados dos estudantes a partir desses ambientes e usando-os como atributos de algoritmos de aprendizagem de máquina para a construção de modelos preditivos. No entanto, a comunidade científica sugere que tais estudos sejam reproduzidos a fim de investigar se eles são generalizáveis a outras bases de dados educacionais. Neste sentido, neste trabalho apresentou-se um método que emprega um conjunto de atributos correlacionados com as notas dos estudantes, sendo alguns baseados em trabalhos relacionados e outros propostos nesta pesquisa, a fim de realizar a predição do desempenho dos alunos nas avaliações intermediárias e nas médias finais. Tal método foi aplicado a uma base de dados com 486 alunos de IPC. O conjunto de atributos chamado de perfil de programação foi empregado em algoritmos de aprendizagem de máquina e otimizado utilizando duas abordagens: a) ajuste de hiperparâmetros com random search e b) construção do pipeline de aprendizagem de máquina utilizando algoritmos evolutivos. Como resultado, atingiu-se 74,44% de acurácia na tarefa de identificar se os alunos iriam ser reprovados ou aprovados usando os dados das duas semanas de aula em uma base de dados balanceada. Esse resultado foi estatisticamente superior ao baseline. Destaca-se ainda que a partir da oitava semana de aula, o método atingiu acurácias entre 85% e 90,62%.

For many years universities communicated generic graduate attributes (e.g. global citizenship) their students have acquired after studying. Graduate attributes are skills and competencies that are relevant for both employability and other aspects of life (Barrie, 2004). Over the past years and due to the Bologna Process, the focus on competencies has also found its way into universities' curricula. As a consequence, curricula were adapted in order to convey students both in-depth knowledge of a particular area as well as generic competences (Bologna Working Group on Qualifications Framework, 2005, Appendix 8). For example, students with a Master's degree should be able to “communicate their conclusions, and the knowledge and rationale underpinning these, to specialist and non-specialist audiences clearly and unambiguously” (p. 196). This shift has been supported by the demand of the labour market for students that have achieved social and personal competencies, in addition to in-depth knowledge (Heidenreich, 2011). On course level, this placed emphasis on collaborative learning, which had led to “greater autonomy for the learner, but also to greater emphasis on active learning, with creation, communication and participation” (Downes, 2005). The shift to collaborative learning has been supported by existing learning theories and models (Brown et al., 1989; Lave and Wenger, 1991; Vygotsky, 1978), which could explain the educational advantages. For example, collaborative learning has proved to promote critical thinking and communications skills (Johnson and Johnson, 1994; Laal and Ghodsi, 2012). As Haythornthwaite (2006) advocates: “collaborative learning holds the promise of active construction of knowledge, enhanced problem articulation, and benefits exploring and sharing information and knowledge gained from peer-to-peer communication” (p. 10). The term collaboration defies clear definition (Dillenbourg, 1999). In this article, cooperation is seen as the division of labour in tasks, which allows group members to work independently, whereas collaboration needs continuous synchronisation and coordination of labour (Dillenbourg et al., 1996; Haythornthwaite, 2006). Therefore, cooperation allows students to subdivide task assignments, work relatively independent, and to piece the results together to one final product. In contrast, collaboration is seen as a synchronous and coordinated effort of all students to accomplish their task assignment resulting in a final product where “no single hand is visible” (Haythornthwaite, 2006, p. 12). Due to the debate about digital natives (Prensky, 2001) and “students' heavy use of technology” in private life (Luo, 2010, p. 32), teachers have started to explore possible applications of modern technology in teaching and learning. Especially wikis have become popular and gained reasonable attention in higher education. Wikis have been used to support collaborative learning (e.g. Cress and Kimmerle, 2008), collaborative writing (e.g. Naismith et al., 2011), and student engagement (e.g. Neumann and Hood, 2009). A wiki is a “freely expandable collection of interlinked Web ‘pages’, a hypertext system for storing and modifying information - a database, where each page is easily editable by any user” (Leuf and Cunningham, 2001, p. 14; italics in original). Thereby, wikis enable the collaborative construction of knowledge (Alexander, 2006). With the intention to take advantage of the benefits connected with collaborative learning, this doctoral thesis focuses on the facilitation of collaboration in wikis to leverage collaborative learning. The doctoral thesis was founded on a constructivist understanding of reality. The research is associated with three different research areas: adoption of IT, computer-supported collaborative learning, and learning analytics. After reviewing existing literature, three focal points were identified that correspond to the research gaps in these research areas: factors influencing students' use of wikis, assessment of collaborative learning, and monitoring of collaboration. The aims of this doctoral thesis were (1) to investigate students' intentions to adopt and barriers to use wikis in higher education, (2) to develop and evaluate a method for assessing computer-supported collaborative learning, and (3) to map educational objectives onto learning-related data in order to establish indicators for collaboration. Based on the research aims, four studies were carried out. Each study raised unique research questions that has been addressed by different methods. Thereby, this doctoral thesis presents findings covering the complete process of the use of wikis to support collaboration and thus provides a holistic view on the use of wikis in higher education.:Introduction Theoretical foundation Research areas and focal points Research aims and questions Methods Findings Conclusions References Essay 1: Factors influencing wiki collaboration in higher education Essay 2: Students' intentions to use wikis in higher education Essay 3: Facilitating collaboration in wikis Essay 4: Using fsQCA to identify indicators for wiki collaboration

Die Visualisierung von Lernerdaten spielt in der online-gestützten Hochschullehre eine große Rolle. Durch Learning-Analytics-Ansätze kann problematisches Gruppen und Einzelverhalten frühzeitig diagnostiziert werden. Durch die Rückspiegelung lernrelevanter Daten und Informationen können beispielsweise Studierende im Online-Studium unterstützt (Krämer et al., 2017; Diziol et al., 2010) und die Leistung von Lerngruppen verglichen werden (Gaaw et al., 2017, S. 151). Um diese – häufig komplexen und vielschichtigen – Datensätze für Lernende zugänglich, erfassbar und kommunizierbar zu machen, sind geeignete Visualisierungsformen erforderlich. Im vorliegenden Beitrag wurden unterschiedliche Visualisierungsformen hinsichtlich der User Experience (UX), Ästhetik und des Gesamteindrucks mittels einer Online-Studie untersucht. [Aus der Einleitung.]

abstract: Learning analytics application is evolving into a student-facing solution. Student-facing learning analytics dashboards (SFLADs), as one popular application, occupies a pivotal position in online learning. However, the application of SFLADs faces challenges due to teacher-centered and researcher-centered approaches. The majority of SFLADs report student learning data to teachers, administrators, and researchers without direct student involvement in the design of SFLADs. The primary design criteria of SFLADs is developing interactive and user-friendly interfaces or sophisticated algorithms that analyze the collected data about students’ learning activities in various online environments. However, if students are not using these tools, then analytics about students are not useful. In response to this challenge, this study focuses on investigating student perceptions regarding the design of SFLADs aimed at providing ownership over learning. The study adopts an approach to design-based research (DBR; Barab, 2014) called the Integrative Learning Design Framework (ILDF; Bannan-Ritland, 2003). The theoretical conjectures and the definition of student ownership are both framed by Self-determination theory (SDT), including four concepts of academic motivation. There are two parts of the design in this study, including prototypes design and intervention design. They are guided by a general theory-based inference which is student ownership will improve student perceptions of learning in an autonomy-supportive SFLAD context. A semi-structured interview is used to gather student perceptions regarding the design of SFLADs aimed at providing ownership over learning. / Dissertation/Thesis / Masters Thesis Educational Psychology 2019

With globally increased migration and mobility between countries, it has become critical for many people to learn to speak a second language. The focus of this study is on adult migrant language learners that are learning a second language of the host country on the side of their working life. This study aims to support learners in their second language acquisition outside classrooms settings. In particular, it explores how the use of a specially designed application aimed at helping learners to keep track on how much time they spend on studying a second language affects their engagement and motivation to continue study the target language. To support migrant learners keeping track of the time spent on language learning activities (e.g., speaking, writing, reading and listening), a web-based application, the TimeTracker App, accessible through users’ mobile device has been developed by the researcher and offered to the learners. Participants in this study used the application for around two weeks. A mixed method approach was employed: data was collected through semi-structured interviews and by extracting log data from the application’s database. Interview data was analysed by means of a conventional content analysis and log data by using descriptive statistics. Overall, the study’s results show that the use of the TimeTracker App enabled the respondents to feel more aware of how much time they spent on their studies, and inspired them to devote more time to study the target language compared to before using the application. The findings suggest that migrant learners become more motivated and engaged in their second language learning when using the application. / Globalt ökad migration och rörlighet mellan länder har gjort det kritiskt för många att lära sig att tala ett andraspråk. Denna studie fokuserar på arbetande migranter som lär sig ett andraspråk vid sidan av sitt arbetsliv. Studien syftar till att stödja de studerande i sitt lärande av ett andraspråk utanför klassrummet. I synnerhet undersöker den hur användningen av en speciellt utformad applikation som syftar till att hjälpa eleverna att hålla reda på hur mycket tid de spenderar på att studera ett andraspråk påverkar deras engagemang och motivation för att fortsätta studera målspråket. För att hjälpa studerande migranter hålla reda på den tid som spenderas på språkinlärning (t ex att tala, skriva, läsa och lyssna) har en webbaserad applikation, TimeTracker App, som är tillgänglig via användarnas mobiltelefon, utvecklats av författaren och erbjudits till eleverna. Deltagarna i denna studie använde applikationen i cirka två veckor. En blandad metod användes: data samlades in genom halvstrukturerade intervjuer och genom att extrahera loggdata från applikationsdatabasen. Intervjudata analyserades med hjälp av en konventionell innehållsanalys och loggdata med hjälp av beskrivande statistik. Sammantaget visar studiens resultat att användningen av TimeTracker App gjorde det möjligt för respondenterna att bli mer medvetna om hur mycket tid de spenderade på sina studier och det inspirerade dem att ägna mer tid att studera målspråket jämfört med innan man använde applikationen. Resultaten tyder på att arbetande migranter blir mer motiverade och engagerade i sitt studerande av ett andraspråk när de använder applikationen.

[pt] Cursos online têm ampliado as possibilidades de pesquisa sobre comportamento e performance de estudantes. Esta tese investiga como apoiar instrutores na análise de logs de estudantes em Ambientes Virtuais de Aprendizagem. Primeiro, conduzimos entrevistas com instrutores e realizamos um mapeamento sistemático do estado da arte sobre Education Data Mining e Learning Analytics. Em seguida, analisamos logs de cursos online oferecidos no Brasil e comparamos nossas descobertas com resultados apresentados na literatura. Além disso, capturamos as preferências dos instrutores em relação a visualização de comportamento e performance de estudantes. Contudo, notamos uma lacuna de trabalhos mostrando modelos para o desenvolvimento de ferramentas de Learning Analytics. Com base nesses estudos, esta tese apresenta um modelo conectando teorias e modelos de visualização, assim como requisitos dos instrutores, suas preferências de visualização, diretrizes da literatura e métodos para análise de logs dos estudantes. Instanciamos e avaliamos esse modelo em uma ferramenta para montar dashboards, capturamos evidências de aceitação da nossa proposta e obtivemos feedbacks dos instrutores sobre a ferramenta tais como suas preferências de análise e visualizações. Por fim, apresentamos algumas considerações e discutimos lacunas existentes no trabalho que podem fundamentar e guiar futuras pesquisas, tais como desenvolvimento de novas instâncias e implantações do nosso modelo em instituições de ensino brasileiras e avaliação de eventuais mudanças na performance dos estudantes quando instrutores visualizam informações sobre o comportamento e performance deles, e agem de acordo. É importante ressaltar que a maioria dos estudos apresentados nessa tese foram conduzidos antes da pandemia de COVID-19. Somente o último estudo foi executado no início da pandemia no Brasil. / [en] Online education has broadened the avenues of research on student s behavior and performance. In this thesis, we shed light on how to support instructors in analyzing student logs from Virtual Learning Environments. Firstly, we conducted interviews with instructors and a systematic mapping of the state-of-art about Education Data Mining and Learning Analytics. Then, we analyzed logs from online courses offered in Brazil and compared our findings with results presented in the literature. Moreover, we gathered instructors preferences in regard to visualization of both students behavior and performance. However, we noted a lack of work showing models to support the development of learning analytics tools. In order to bridge this gap, this thesis presents a model connecting both Visual Analytics theories and models as well as instructors requirements, their visualization preferences, literature guidelines and methods for analyzing student logs. We instantiated and evaluated this model in a tool to assemble dashboards. We captured evidence of their acceptance of our proposal and obtained instructors feedback about the tool such as their both analysis and visualization preferences. Finally, we present some considerations and discuss gaps in existing works that can ground and guide future research, such as new instances of our model, as well as deploying them at Brazilian institutions and evaluating whether there are changes in students performance when instructors are able to see information about their behavior and performance, and act accordingly. It is worth highlighting that the majority of studies presented in this thesis were conducted before the COVID-19 pandemic. Only the last study was performed in the beginning of the pandemic in Brazil.