concept
Learning Analytics
Measurement, collection, analysis, and reporting of data about learners and their contexts, intended to understand and optimize learning environments.
Also known as: educational analytics
Learning analytics is the set of methods used to make sense of what learners do — how they progress, where they struggle, what works in a given context.
Done well, learning analytics supports teachers and learners: it surfaces students who need help, informs lesson planning, and turns diffuse classroom intuition into evidence. Done badly, it becomes surveillance: time-on-platform metrics, rankings, dashboards that pressure rather than inform.
The dividing line is intent and design. Responsible learning analytics:
- Tracks learning objectives, not screen time or click counts.
- Aggregates at the class or cohort level when individual identity adds no pedagogical value.
- Produces insights for conversations between teacher and student, not automated judgments.
- Respects privacy by design at every step.
See the article on Ethical EdTech §4 for a practical breakdown.