Why data alone isn’t enough
Student learning within the further and higher education system has the potential to generate large quantities of student academic performance data for each individual. But a platform that collects data without evaluating it is simply gathering numbers. Even evaluated data has limited value unless it’s used to actively optimise student performance during their academic career.
The growth of EdTech means more data than ever is available—not just academic performance, but demographic insights that help build a 360° view of each student. From educational performance, strengths, and areas requiring additional attention, to personal factors, this data empowers educators to evaluate performance and improve learning outcomes.
This aligns with the Department of Education and Skills Data Strategy (2017), which prioritises maximising the value of data to enhance learning experiences and learner success.
Turning data into action
Careful analysis of student data enables better-informed decisions about:
- Teaching strategies
- Learning methods
- Best practices
It also supports the creation of individualised learning pathways tailored to each student’s strengths, challenges, and preferences. Crucially, it helps identify students at risk of disengagement, or worse still, dropping out —allowing timely intervention and course adjustments to re-engage interest.
Having the right student information management system in place is essential to support this level of analysis and tracking.
Understanding student performance
There are several different ways in which student performance can be analysed – ranging from the informal (such as basic checks on understanding, and quizzes) to the more formal and standardised (national assessments, tests, essays, exams etc.), and even self-assessment and peer assessment.
Essays can be useful in assessing students’ cognitive and analytical skills, but results can be distorted by differences in students’ writing skills. The time required for essay writing can also limit the number of questions which can be asked and, therefore, the breadth of knowledge and learning which can be assessed. Oral presentations allow real-time evaluation and deeper questioning. The value of an oral assessment is that it can be enhanced by combining it with other more traditional assessment methods.
Compositions and writing samples are another approach to assessment. Though they share some of the same drawbacks as essays, they do have the advantage of being less time-consuming for students to produce and for educators to assess.
Although some assessment of educational achievement in the ways outlined above is essential, a wider range of data can help to provide an even more accurate indication of learning outcomes. In a 2020 article published in the Heliyon scientific journal, the authors described how they had been able to predict student academic performance based on 16 different demographics, including age, gender, class attendance, internet access, and possession of a computer.
Student data analysis and how to use it
The increasing integration of digital and data management technology into every part of the education sector is providing enormous benefits both for educators and students.
At its most basic, it is helping increase efficiency, simplify and streamline communications. However, with accelerating innovation and technological advances, it is proving even more valuable. By connecting and centralising various data sources, it creates an artificial neural network that offers a rounded view of every student. And through data mining – the process of discovering and extracting patterns from within these large amounts of data – it can provide the basis of predicting educational performance, as well as identifying areas where performance needs to be improved, and informing enhanced decision making.
As computer programmes and algorithms have grown in sophistication, data analysis has become faster, more accurate and more concise, which in turn has delivered the same benefits for data-based analysis and student evaluation. And it is not only educators who benefit. The students themselves gain from teaching staff who have a better understanding of their individual learning needs, as do parents and carers who want to support students outside the immediate educational environment.
Technology that delivers outcomes
To successfully capitalise on data, institutions need robust data management technology- and the proficiency to use it well. Success depends on:
- System capability
- User understanding
- Shared goals across stakeholders
When these align, data insights lead to more targeted teaching, more effective support, stronger engagement, and—ultimately—optimised student performance.
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