Adoption and Impact of a Learning Analytics Dashboard Supporting the Advisor-Student Dialogue in a Higher Education Institute in Latin America

This paper presents a case study on the adoption and the impact of new modules in a learning analytics dashboard supporting the dialogue between student advisors and students when advising on a study plan for the next academic semester in Escuela Superior Politecnica del Litoral, a higher education institute in Ecuador. The impact and the adoption of the new dashboard modules were assessed using a mixed-methods approach. The "quantitative approach" builds on data of 172 advisors in 34 programs and 4481 advising sessions in 2019 (post) and 4747 advising sessions in 2018 (pre) to assess the adoption and use of the dashboard, the level of support experienced by the advisors, the impact of the new dashboard modules on the difference between the advised study plan and the plan students register for, and students' academic achievement. The "qualitative approach" with observations of 14 staged advising dialogues and semi-structured interviews with eight advisors was used to assess how the dashboard was used and to get deeper understanding of the perceived usefulness and impact of the dashboard. The results show that an institution-wide deployment of dashboard modules tailored to the needs of the advisors can be achieved and can increase the level of support perceived by the advisors and significantly decrease the gap between the suggested study plans in advising dialogues and the study plans that students actually register for. On the short-term, however, no significant changes in academic achievement were observed.