Personal Learning Analytics Application for Students

Abstract

There are academic and non-academic factors that might influence university students' achievement. The academic factors may be seen as important academic skills which directly influence students' achievement. However, non-academic qualifications, such as time management, are equally important and need investigation. Many students struggle to balance and manage their academic work with their busy social life, which leads to increased academic stress and time management issues. Students' lack of time management skills is a common problem. Since university students have great influence over their academic responsibilities, they are frequently required to work independently. While participating in the learning process on campus, students must plan, monitor, and control their own studies. Therefore, students must learn how to effectively manage their time in order to submit assignments on time and enhance their academic success. In this research, we examined how students felt about using sensors or a tracker system to record their regular activities. It is crucial to understand how students feel about utilizing this data since sometimes the information acquired from sensors or a tracker system is completely personal information. In this research, we gather students' perceptions of several data sources that may aid in their Time Management self-reflection. We propose various data sources, ranging from students' activities data on campus, online activity, and physical activity data the analyze the usefulness and sensitivity of each data source based on students' opinions. We also investigate students' willingness to expose their data to others, whether to provide it as identifiable information, anonymously or not share at all. This study also explores a gamification approach that might increase users' engagement. Adopting a User-Centred Design (UCD) approach in this study, students completed a questionnaire about the data sources useful for their self-reflection during the learning process. It showed that students preferred the data sources that helped them improve time management by recording their daily activities. The use of location data helped students record their activities retrospectively and figure out what activities they had done. Students also participated in group discussions to define the design considerations. Then, they are also involved in usability and acceptance tests to evaluate the mobile app. This study showcases how a UCD approach could be applied to designing and evaluating students' preferences for their time management app. It contributes to the knowledge of user-centred design in several ways. Firstly, this study provides an understanding of how students perceive their data, which is helpful for their self-reflection in time management and their privacy preference regarding disclosing the information to others. Secondly, this study contributes design considerations as a set of design guidelines and recommendations that practitioners should take into account when developing time management apps for students.