More, better feedback please: are learning analytics dashboards (LAD) the solution to a wicked problem?

There is a long-standing lack of learner satisfaction with quality and quantity of feedback in health professions education (HPE) and training. To address this, university and training programmes are increasingly using technological advancements and data analytic tools to provide feedback. One such...

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Main Authors: Kitto, Simon, Chiang, Michelle Hui Ling, Ng, Olivia, Cleland, Jennifer
Other Authors: Lee Kong Chian School of Medicine (LKCMedicine)
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: 2024
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Online Access:https://hdl.handle.net/10356/180532
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Institution: Nanyang Technological University
Language: English
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spelling sg-ntu-dr.10356-1805322024-10-13T15:37:46Z More, better feedback please: are learning analytics dashboards (LAD) the solution to a wicked problem? Kitto, Simon Chiang, Michelle Hui Ling Ng, Olivia Cleland, Jennifer Lee Kong Chian School of Medicine (LKCMedicine) Medicine, Health and Life Sciences Educational technology Health professions education There is a long-standing lack of learner satisfaction with quality and quantity of feedback in health professions education (HPE) and training. To address this, university and training programmes are increasingly using technological advancements and data analytic tools to provide feedback. One such educational technology is the Learning Analytic Dashboard (LAD), which holds the promise of a comprehensive view of student performance via partial or fully automated feedback delivered to learners in real time. The possibility of displaying performance data visually, on a single platform, so users can access and process feedback efficiently and constantly, and use this to improve their performance, is very attractive to users, educators and institutions. However, the mainstream literature tends to take an atheoretical and instrumentalist view of LADs, a view that uncritically celebrates the promise of LAD's capacity to provide a 'technical fix' to the 'wicked problem' of feedback in health professions education. This paper seeks to recast the discussion of LADs as something other than a benign material technology using the lenses of Miller and Rose's technologies of government and Barry's theory of Technological Societies, where such technical devices are also inherently agentic and political. An examination of the purpose, design and deployment of LADs from these theoretical perspectives can reveal how these educational devices shape and govern the HPE learner body in different ways, which in turn, may produce a myriad of unintended- and ironic- effects on the feedback process. In this Reflections article we wish to encourage health professions education scholars to examine the practices and consequences thereof of the ever-expanding use of LADs more deeply and with a sense of urgency. Submitted/Accepted version 2024-10-10T03:26:30Z 2024-10-10T03:26:30Z 2024 Journal Article Kitto, S., Chiang, M. H. L., Ng, O. & Cleland, J. (2024). More, better feedback please: are learning analytics dashboards (LAD) the solution to a wicked problem?. Advances in Health Sciences Education. https://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10459-024-10358-8 1382-4996 https://hdl.handle.net/10356/180532 10.1007/s10459-024-10358-8 39186167 2-s2.0-85202064565 en Advances in Health Sciences Education © 2024 The Author(s). All rights reserved. This article may be downloaded for personal use only. Any other use requires prior permission of the copyright holder. The Version of Record is available online at http://doi.org/10.1007/s10459-024-10358-8. application/pdf
institution Nanyang Technological University
building NTU Library
continent Asia
country Singapore
Singapore
content_provider NTU Library
collection DR-NTU
language English
topic Medicine, Health and Life Sciences
Educational technology
Health professions education
spellingShingle Medicine, Health and Life Sciences
Educational technology
Health professions education
Kitto, Simon
Chiang, Michelle Hui Ling
Ng, Olivia
Cleland, Jennifer
More, better feedback please: are learning analytics dashboards (LAD) the solution to a wicked problem?
description There is a long-standing lack of learner satisfaction with quality and quantity of feedback in health professions education (HPE) and training. To address this, university and training programmes are increasingly using technological advancements and data analytic tools to provide feedback. One such educational technology is the Learning Analytic Dashboard (LAD), which holds the promise of a comprehensive view of student performance via partial or fully automated feedback delivered to learners in real time. The possibility of displaying performance data visually, on a single platform, so users can access and process feedback efficiently and constantly, and use this to improve their performance, is very attractive to users, educators and institutions. However, the mainstream literature tends to take an atheoretical and instrumentalist view of LADs, a view that uncritically celebrates the promise of LAD's capacity to provide a 'technical fix' to the 'wicked problem' of feedback in health professions education. This paper seeks to recast the discussion of LADs as something other than a benign material technology using the lenses of Miller and Rose's technologies of government and Barry's theory of Technological Societies, where such technical devices are also inherently agentic and political. An examination of the purpose, design and deployment of LADs from these theoretical perspectives can reveal how these educational devices shape and govern the HPE learner body in different ways, which in turn, may produce a myriad of unintended- and ironic- effects on the feedback process. In this Reflections article we wish to encourage health professions education scholars to examine the practices and consequences thereof of the ever-expanding use of LADs more deeply and with a sense of urgency.
author2 Lee Kong Chian School of Medicine (LKCMedicine)
author_facet Lee Kong Chian School of Medicine (LKCMedicine)
Kitto, Simon
Chiang, Michelle Hui Ling
Ng, Olivia
Cleland, Jennifer
format Article
author Kitto, Simon
Chiang, Michelle Hui Ling
Ng, Olivia
Cleland, Jennifer
author_sort Kitto, Simon
title More, better feedback please: are learning analytics dashboards (LAD) the solution to a wicked problem?
title_short More, better feedback please: are learning analytics dashboards (LAD) the solution to a wicked problem?
title_full More, better feedback please: are learning analytics dashboards (LAD) the solution to a wicked problem?
title_fullStr More, better feedback please: are learning analytics dashboards (LAD) the solution to a wicked problem?
title_full_unstemmed More, better feedback please: are learning analytics dashboards (LAD) the solution to a wicked problem?
title_sort more, better feedback please: are learning analytics dashboards (lad) the solution to a wicked problem?
publishDate 2024
url https://hdl.handle.net/10356/180532
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