Single or multi-page learning analytics dashboards? Relationships between teachers’ cognitive load and visualisation literacy

There has been a proliferation of learning analytics (LA) interfaces designed to support teachers, such as LA dashboards. However, although teacher dashboards have been extensively studied, there is limited understanding of the relationship between single-page or multi-page dashboard designs and the cognitive demands placed on teachers to use them. Additionally, teachers typically have varying levels of visualisation literacy (VL), which may make it easier or more difficult for them to engage with single-page versus multi-page dashboard designs. In this paper, we explore how teachers, with varying VL, use single-page and multi-page LA dashboards. We conducted a quasi-experimental study with 23 higher education teachers of varied VL inspecting single and multi-page LA dashboards. We used an eye-tracking device to measure cognitive load while teachers inspected the LA dashboards in online group work. We investigated how proxy metrics derived from eye-tracking data related to teachers’ cognitive load varied depending on the type of the dashboard teacher used and the level of VL teachers have. Our findings suggest that the design of the LA dashboard had an impact on the cognitive load experienced by the teachers. Post-hoc analysis revealed that teachers with low VL had a marginally lower cognitive load when using single-page dashboards. We argue that the LA dashboard design for teachers should account for teachers’ levels of VL and provide design recommendations.