Associations between students' approaches to learning and learning analytics visualizations

We investigated the connection between Students' Approaches to Learning and different information presented in learning analytics visualizations. Students' approaches to learning are a construct studied in educational psychology. They are context dependent and can be either surface or deep. In a field experiment, we discovered a significant interaction effect between learning analytics visualizations and students' approach to learning on the quality of messages posted by students. The associations were both positive and negative, depending on the combination of information presented in the visualizations and students' approach to learning. The paper contributes to the development of the body of research knowledge that aims to explain of how aptitude constructs from educational psychology interact with learning analytics visualizations.