By Jeff Duchmann, VP of EdTech, Creative Synergies Group
In the fourth year since the pandemic, EdTech has increasingly changed the way we learn. Globally, educational institutes are tracking progress, analyzing learning data, designing appropriate assessments and driving better learning outcomes. Businesses are using it to upskill their workforce, while academia finds its value in publishing.
Similarly, a great example of EdTech’s potential is India in the post-pandemic era, its education system stands at a digital tipping point. Students have returned to classrooms and the tides have turned for some EdTech businesses that are struggling to keep up. Yet, the daily usage of digital instructional materials has increased from 28% in 2019 to 52% in 2024, according to EY. Learning analytics holds the potential to reinvent the industry in the country. It seeks to leverage new learning opportunities with new forms of data on learning activity and use computational analysis techniques to drive meaningful insights.
Learning analytics for personalised upskilling
Traditionally, learning analytics was most commonly used in predicting a student’s academic success and identifying students at the risk of dropping out or failing. But learning analytics can deliver far more powerful outcomes. You could be a student at school or college, or an employee looking to upskill, learning analytics can support holistic development.
According to LinkedIn’s Workplace Learning Report 2024, 90% of organisations say that providing learning opportunities is the number one retention strategy. With digitalisation touching almost every aspect of life, people at work crave for new skills and they are motivated by career progress. EdTech plays a pivotal role in making employees skill-ready. For example, it can support personalised learning skills and strategies, provide timely feedback, help develop critical thinking, a collaborative mindset and creativity and support quality learning and teaching with data-backed evidence of success.
Learning analytics uses both qualitative and quantitative data to help EdTech platforms understand what has happened and even predict future performances and student behaviors. For example, learning analytics can track a person’s physical and online interactions, skills, areas of interest and strengths and then map their knowledge of each subject or topic. It can then provide personalised learning content. When businesses have access to granular data about the learning process, they can improve learning outcomes by incorporating feedback to tailor content that best suits their employees.
Learning analytics in educational institutions
For educational institutes, EdTech can deliver immense value in personalized learning. The coaching-centre culture in India, for instance, is a $48.9 billion market. In 2024, a third of Indian parents still believe that in-school education isn’t enough for better performance. A myriad of factors play a role in it, including the student-to-teacher ratio, the lack of personalised learning and the slower adoption of technology in rural areas compared to the urban setting.
Learning analytics has the potential to solve many of these challenges. The technology can provide meaningful and timely feedback to students when they need it the most. Any teacher’s feedback is motivated by the students’ needs. In most classrooms — be it school, K-12 or higher education, students’ needs are perceived by a teacher’s observations and what’s reflected in their assignments.
It often delays the process of understanding a student’s challenges and intervening at the appropriate time. Learning analytics embedded within a learning management system can instantly recognize a student’s struggle and provide immediate intervention. It could steer them towards the right resources such as a YouTube video explaining the problem. The timely feedback goes a long way in improving learning outcomes as students will feel more empowered and confident in the learning process.
Engagement is at the heart of successful learning outcomes. Learning analytics offers valuable insights into learner engagement metrics, such as the time spent on the platform, number of interactions, and session durations. Organisations can leverage it to translate insights into action by delivering hyper-personalized learning content in a manner that people understand best.