Exploring Instructors’ Interpretation Patterns with Feedback Dashboards

Abstract

To support more effective use of learning analytics in teaching, it is important to examine how instructors make sense of analytic information. This study examines how university instructors interpret data presented in a learning analytics feedback dashboard, focusing on the knowledge they activate and the analytic strategies they use. Interview data from 13 instructors were analyzed. Four types of activated knowledge and 10 sensemaking strategies were identified. The results show that instructors’ engagement with feedback dashboards is strongly shaped by contextual knowledge, and they frequently interpret feedback by explaining outcomes, relating them to their own beliefs, and drawing on prior teaching experiences. Overall, this study provides an integrative framework for characterizing instructors’ sensemaking patterns in learning analytics and advances the theoretical understanding of data-informed teaching practices.