Unpacking student engagement in higher education learning analytics: a systematic review

Educational outcomes are heavily reliant on student engagement, yet this concept is complex and subject to diverse interpretations. The intricacy of the issue arises from the broad spectrum of interpretations, each contributing to the understanding of student engagement as both complex and multifaceted. Given the emergence and increasing use of Learning Analytics (LA) within higher education to provide enhanced insight into engagement, research is needed to understand how engagement is conceptualised by LA researchers and what dimensions and indicators of engagement are captured by studies that use log data. This systematic review synthesises primary research indexed in the Web of Science, Scopus, ProQuest, A + Education, and SAGE journals or captured through snowballing in OpenAlex. Studies were included if they were published between 2011 and 2023, were journal articles or conference papers and explicitly focused on LA and engagement or disengagement within formal higher education settings. 159 studies were included for data extraction within EPPI Reviewer. The findings reveal that LA research overwhelmingly approaches engagement using observable behavioural engagement measures, such as clicks and task duration, with very few studies exploring multiple dimensions of engagement. Ongoing issues with methodological reporting quality were identified, including a lack of detailed contextual information, and recommendations for future research and practice are provided.