Building personalised homework from a learning analytics based formative assessment: Effect on fifth-grade students' understanding of fractions

This study analyses the potential of a learning analytics (LA) based formative assessment to construct personalised teaching sequences in Mathematics for 5th-grade primary school students. A total of 127 students from Spanish public schools participated in the study. The quasi-experimental study was conducted over the course of six sessions, in which both control and experimental groups participated in a teaching sequence based on mathematical problems. In each session, both groups used audience response systems to record their responses to mathematical tasks about fractions. After each session, students from the control group were given generic homework on fractions-the same activities for all the participants-while students from the experimental group were given a personalised set of activities. The provision of personalised homework was based on the students' errors detected from the use of the LA-based formative assessment. After the intervention, the results indicate a higher student level of understanding of the concept of fractions in the experimental group compared to the control group. Related to motivational dimensions, results indicated that instruction using audience response systems has a positive effect compared to regular mathematics classes. Practitioner notesWhat is already known about this topic Developing an understanding of fractions is one of the most challenging concepts in elementary mathematics and a solid predictor of future achievements in mathematics.Learning analytics (LA) has the potential to provide quality, functional data for assessing and supporting learners' difficulties.Audience response systems (ARS) are one of the most practical ways to collect data for LA in classroom environments.There is a scarcity of field research implementations on LA mediated by ARS in real contexts of elementary school classrooms.What this paper adds Empirical evidence about how LA-based formative assessments can enable personalised homework to support student understanding of fractions.Personalised homework based on an LA-based formative assessment improves the students' comprehension of fractions.Using ARS for the teaching of fractions has a positive effect in terms of student motivation.Implications for practice and/or policy Teachers should be given LA/ARS tools that allow them to quickly provide students with personalised mathematical instruction.Researchers should continue exploring these potentially beneficial educational implementations in other areas.