Cultural Perspectives
A measure of participation or engagement may differ in different contexts. Certainly, measures established as being correlated with successful or unsuccessful outcomes are likely to differ in different cultures.
Canada
Siemens, G. (2013) argues that the potential for learning analytics to provide educators with actionable insight into teaching and learning is clear. But what is less clear are the implications of a heavy reliance on analytics.
He reflects on a learning analytics (LA) conference in 2010 held in Banff, Alberta, where 100 attendees specifically focused on the interdisciplinary nature of analytics. “Conference organizers explicitly sought out presentations that addressed both the technical/algorithmic as well as the social/pedagogical aspect of analytics, recognizing that LA requires considerations of the social aspects and activities that may not yet be quantifiable” (p. 1395). He goes on to state that there is a high corporate interest in LA, and many LMS providers offer analytics in their software. Siemens quotes and echoes Ellul’s (1964) comments that remind us of the need to keep human and social processes central in LA activities. That is often not the case with LA vendors that are one-off builds and do not allow for content authoring.
USA
The ALMAP report (2016) stated that U.S. institutions of higher education are facing unprecedented pressure to produce more college graduates in order to increase job attainment and reduce income
inequality. At the same time, media headlines routinely report soaring tuition costs, particularly at public institutions for which public tax subsidies have declined substantially over the past decade.
This landscape prompts a potential instructional reform - an adoption of adaptive learning technologies (including products from a Pearson-Knewton joint venture, from a unit of McGraw-Hill Education called ALEKS) - as a response to these challenges. However, the ALMAP report findings, which is one of the most rigorous studies done on the use of learning analytics in higher education institutions, were sobering. In most cases, students didn’t get higher grades from using adaptive learning software, nor were they more likely to pass a course than in a traditional face-to-face class.
UK
In the UK, the Department for Education and the main schools ministers have tended to be skeptical of new technology, and adaptive technology is generally an emerging technology, taking into consideration the lack of efficacy research.
There is a need for systematic funding for research and development directed to emerging fields, of which adaptive learning technologies is one. Without committing funds to further explore the possibilities of this technology, it will remain right where it is - within reach of only the affluent.
Following this, more needs to be done to help mobilize groups of schools to bulk purchase through platforms that can simplify buying products with evidence of impact on learning behind them.
India
Researchers Muralidharan, K. et. al (2019) in India studied the impact of a personalized technology-aided after-school instruction program (MindSpark) in middle-school grades in urban India using a lottery that provided winners with free access to the program.
In India, and many other developing countries, the rapid expansion of education has led to the enrollment of millions of first-generation learners, who lack instructional support when they fall behind the curriculum. The use of adaptive technology, with its promises of individualized learning pathways, immediate feedback and transformative instructional practices, was theoretically a good fit. Private, after-school tutoring is also prevalent in these settings, so cost effectiveness was also an important factor.
Since the program had already been developed, the cost at implementing this program for a modest 50 schools would equal to $4.00 per pupil, whereas if it were adopted above 1,000 schools the cost would drop to $2.00 per pupil. In order to retain subsidies from donors, these MindSpark centres would need to be at 80% capacity to ensure the minimum fees were covered by the majority of parents. However, in reality, attendance was considerably lower than the minimum capacity, and donors no longer provided fee-waiving vouchers. This tells us that the students who may need this technology the most (as it showed promise in closing the gaps in learning) may not be able to access it anyway.