Ethics of Care and Students’ Stigmatization by Learning Analytics

Doty, Philip; Kravchenko, Elizaveta

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https://hdl.handle.net/2142/115175 Copy

Description

Title

Ethics of Care and Students’ Stigmatization by Learning Analytics

Author(s)

• Doty, Philip
• Kravchenko, Elizaveta

Contributor(s)

Sanfilippo, Madelyn

Issue Date

2022-10-29

Keyword(s)

• ethics of care
• higher education
• learning management systems
• surveillance
• learning analytics

Abstract

Educational institutions use learning analytics (LA) and learning management systems (LMS), particularly in higher (i.e., post-secondary) education. LA and LMS aim to “customize” students’ interactions with institutional systems, not just academic (learning, advising, interaction with peers and instructors, library use, and more) but also to integrate the academic with the personal (demographic, financial, health, extra-curricular, social media, geographic, and other information). Using predictive analytics, the goals of integration include increased academic success, retention, and graduation rates. There are, however, wide-spread concerns about the ethics and efficacy of the comprehensive surveillance that LA and LMS enact, thereby undermining the autonomy and maturation that higher education hopes to help students achieve. We position surveillance by LA and LMS in wider surveillance studies, emphasizing internal and external stigmatization of students that emerges from LA and LMS practices. We identify how the feminist ethics of care is a useful means to understand and address such stigmatization, including providing critique of current design processes and alternatives to them.

Type of Resource

text

Language

en

Handle URL

https://hdl.handle.net/2142/115175

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