Doctoral researcher Ram Ramanathan recently presented his PhD work on Belonging Analytics, an emerging concept that we are developing here in CIC. Here’s the replay/paper/slides from the international Learning Analytics conference at the Kyoto International Conference Center, and below are his personal reflections on this trip!
Sriram Ramanathan, Simon Buckingham Shum, and Lisa-Angelique Lim. 2024. To what extent do responses to a single survey question provide insights into students’ sense of belonging? In Proceedings of the 14th Learning Analytics and Knowledge Conference (LAK ’24). Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA, 878–884. (Open Access)
Abstract: A student’s “sense of belonging” is critical to retention and success in higher education. However, belonging is a multifaceted and dynamic concept, making monitoring and supporting it with timely action challenging. Conventional approaches to researching belonging depend on lengthy surveys and/or focus groups, and while often insightful, these are resource-intensive, slow, and cannot be repeated too often. “Belonging Analytics” is an emerging concept pointing to the potential of learning analytics to address this challenge, and to illustrate this concept, this paper investigates the feasibility of asking students a single question about what promotes their sense of belonging. To validate this, responses were analysed using a form of topic modelling, and these were triangulated by examining alignment with (i) students’ responses to Likert scale items in a belonging scale and (ii) the literature on the drivers of belonging. These alignments support our proposal that this is a practical tool to gain timely insight into a cohort’s sense of belonging. Reflecting our focus on practical tools, the approach is implemented using analytics products readily available to educational institutions — Linguistic Inquiry Word Count (LIWC) and Statistical Program for Social Sciences (SPSS).
Broader reflections on LAK24
Wow! is all that I can sum up the experiences I had whilst attending and presenting my first research paper at my first LAK conference in Kyoto.
The event was an opportunity for learning analytics (LA) professionals, experts, and emerging talent to showcase their research, their findings from the last 12 months and a great opportunity to network. The event was not like any other conference I have attended and throwing the Japanese culture to the mix was welcoming and an interesting learning journey in more ways than one. Japanese culture is so intense yet subtle that you cannot, not be drawn to it. Reaching Kyoto late in the evening was not an issue except for the train disruptions, lost connections etc but I made it to the hotel and was looking forward to my sleep after travelling for 18 hours! I spent Sunday with another PhD candidate, a colleague from Queensland and together we found time to take in the sights and scenes of Kyoto, the blossoming cherry blossoms, the temples, the men and women in their traditional Japanese dresses and savour the much talked about Japanese Ramen- and were provided with cutlery when one could not eat with a chopstick!
The event was attended by about 500 delegates with multiple streams of workshops and presentations taking place. The organisers provided us all with the Whova App that made the process of attending the presentations, the venue and the times seamless.
Monday was participation in my first workshop, about Trace SRL- The workshop on Measuring and Facilitating Self-regulated Learning based on Trace data. It was a great opportunity to meet face to face some of the experts from the field of LA and learn how they were using trace data to identify self-regulated learning as I was keen to explore if there were opportunities that can help with my research, on a sense of belonging. The view from the workshop was amazing making it hard to concentrate on the content!
On Tuesday, I participated in an actionable learning analytics workshop that looked at how analytics can assist faculty, the university administration, and the learning designers. It was very informative as it looked at how LA can inform multiple facets of education and how it can benefit the learners eventually. The afternoon session was a workshop, Learning Analytics and Asset Framing- incorporating asset and deficit narratives and data feminism into LA research. It challenged me to think and understand assets and deficits from a learning perspective, something that I was not totally in tune with. It helped me to comprehend, how asset-based LA can exist orthogonally to deficit-based LA. Importantly how asset and deficit in education can be used to promote a growth mindset in learners. It was a poignant phrase that got me engrossed, “what we choose not to build is as important as what we choose to build” in LA.
In the opening keynote session on Wednesday- I was listening in awe to the keynote speaker, Professor Mutlu Cukurova when he illustrated the importance of recognising the limitations of AI and the need for AI to support human agency [associated paper]. This was followed by sessions about learner dashboards where various presenters shared their recent publications and research. I was drawn to the presentation of Ms Sarah Alcock who used automated personalised feedback as an opportunity to improve learner engagement, something I am doing in my research but more on how it encourages a sense of belonging. The poster session helped me to network with colleagues from other educational institutions around the world and see what their research related to. It was also an opportunity to support my fellow Australian researchers.
Thursday’s keynote speaker, Professor Stephen Yang, presented information on how generative AI and LLMs have opened up new horizons in LA and how they present both challenges and opportunities for education. I attended a few concurrent sessions chosen from the WhovaApp namely, probing actionability in LA, by Assistant Professor and Researcher, Yeonju Jung, from the University of Memphis. It illustrated how LA can assist in making a difference in student learning practices. I also attended the sessions that my Australian fellow researchers were presenting and supported their journey.
Friday’s keynote address, by Dr Kirsten Di Cerbo, from Khan Academy was fascinating and Dr Di Cerbo showed how advances in AI have opened up opportunities in learning and understanding learning. It was an informative way to understand how students learn. I presented my LAK24 paper, To what extent do responses to a single survey question provide insights into students’ sense of belonging?- though there were about 70 people registered to attend, there were fewer than expected and it helped calm my nerves. I delivered the paper and information from the study with confidence and although there were not many questions from the audience, it felt like, the mission was accomplished and my several rehearsals of the presentation were worth the effort and outcome!
I am happy that I could meet many researchers, some veterans and others who are emerging and it was a great networking opportunity. I reflect on my first LAK conference as it had many firsts, my first time to Japan, my first time experiencing snow, my first time on a “hello kitty” branded train, my first LAK paper published, my first time meeting many of the names that I have only read about…….I am thankful for CiC to have challenged me to write the paper and supporting me all the way to Kyoto but now it is back to analysis and writing of chapters for my thesis.
