Abstract

Learning analytics dashboards have been developed to facilitate teacher guidance in computer-supported collaborative learning (CSCL). As yet, little is known about how teachers interpret dashboard information to facilitate guidance in their teaching practice. This study examined teachers’ behavior patterns in interpreting information from dashboards, and obtained their views about the potential barriers in interpreting dashboard information. Fourteen pre-service teachers participated in the study and data were collected from multiple sources. In total, 1,346 min of video data on teachers’ guiding behavior and approximately 27,000 words from a cued retrospective report and interview data were generated. A two-stage approach was adopted to process the data. Based on the video analysis in the first stage, we extracted teachers’ four typical behavior patterns in finding and reading dashboard information and two behavior patterns when explaining information from dashboards. Thematic analysis at the second stage identified useful indicators for teacher guidance in CSCL and some major barriers teachers encountered in interpreting information. These findings may help improve the design of dashboards and show how teachers integrate dashboards into their daily teaching practice, thereby enhancing students’ collaboration and learning.