Title: Facilitating Students’ Transition to Higher Education: Interlinking Engagement Analytics and Digital Mediation
Stream: Assessment and Learning Analytics
Presentation Type: Oral Presentation
Authors:
Maurice Kinsella, University College Dublin, Ireland
John Wyatt, University College Dublin, Ireland
Niamh Nestor, University College Dublin, Ireland
Sue Rackard, University College Dublin, Ireland
Jason Last, University College Dublin, Ireland
Abstract:
Healthy higher education engagement can contribute to students’ psychosocial development, educational attainment and future employability. However, when psychological and environmental obstacles arise and are not addressed, students’ willingness and ability to engage may commensurately suffer. This motivational impairment can hinder their academic success and progression; therefore it is vital measures are implemented to identify and address disengagement. Relatedly, the means by which engagement is enabled, experienced, and assessed within Higher Education Institutes are evolving – accelerated by the Covid-19 pandemic and consequent prevalence of hybrid learning. Increased virtual delivery of services and supports offers greater availability and variety of learner data, furthering avenues for engagement analytics. Here, optimising engagement tools and analytics necessitates continually reconsidering and recalibrating their design and delivery to align with technology’s ongoing integration into student experiences. Within this context, University College Dublin’s ‘Live Engagement & Attendance Project’ (UCD LEAP) has sought to create, sustain and grow an analytics framework providing Academic Advisors with real-time programme-level engagement data. This analytic visibility aims to enable support staff to conduct timely and tailored interventions following potential disengagement. The purpose of this project is twofold: helping staff create additional pathways for digitally-mediated student supports, while also achieving a more comprehensive picture of the student experience than would traditionally be available within module-specific engagement silos. This presentation explores UCD LEAP’s longitudinal impact from 2019-2022, including its research findings and contribution to contemporary theoretical frameworks. Additionally, it explores the growth, evolution, and institutional embedding of digitally-mediated support interventions in an international context.
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