Learning analytics as interpretive practice: applying Westerman to educational intervention

• Authors: Michael Atkisson;David Wiley
• Venue: Proceedings of the 1st International Conference on Learning Analytics and Knowledge
• Year: 2011

In Westerman's [12] disruptive article, "Quantitative research as an interpretive enterprise: The mostly unacknowledged role of interpretation in research efforts and suggestions for explicitly interpretive quantitative investigations," he invited qualitative researchers in psychology to adopt quantitative methods into interpretive inquiry, given that they were as capable as qualitative measures in producing meaning-laden results. The objective of this article is to identify Westerman's [12] key arguments and apply them to the practice of Learning Analytics in educational interventions. The primary implication for Learning Analytics practitioners is the need to interpret quantitative analysis procedures at every phase from philosophy to conclusions. Furthermore, Learning Analytics practitioners and consumers must critically examine any assumption that suggests quantitative methodologies in Learning Analytics are inherently objective or that Learning Analytics algorithms may replace judgment rather than aid it. Lastly we propose a method for making observational data in virtual environments concrete through nested models.