Analytics for Supporting Teaching Success in Higher Education: A Systematic Review

Learning analytics are utilized to support learners’ educational needs as well as to enhance their study success, for example, via the use of real-time prompts, motivational dashboards, and appropriate learning interventions, which have been shown to increase students’ academic performance as well as their course retention rates. Yet, the perspective of higher education teachers in utilizing analytics to help analyze, reflect on, and improve their teaching design prior to delivery as well as to monitor and measure how the students engaged with their learning processes has been less recognized. In this paper, we present the results of a systematic review conducted from higher education teachers’ perspective concerning how analytics can be deployed to adapt the curriculum to suit better students’ educational needs in order to increase their study success. Thirty-five key studies were identified showing that analytics have been successful in influencing positively study success via teachers’ academic curriculum intervention. Specifically, via analytics, higher education teachers could rapidly visualize common course pathways and identify any difficulties students experienced in real-time in order to increase their learning experiences and outcomes.