Exploring Data Visualization as an Emerging Analytic Technique

Visual analytics have emerged as a way to allow researchers to understand big data in diverse learning contexts We are interested in using visualization techniques to examine learners’ behavior patterns in an adaptive learning environment and explore the relationship between performance and behavior patterns Participants were first-year students entering into a pharmacy professional degree program As part of a large research effort, in this study we focused on high and low performing students The findings showed the visualizations confirmed some findings of the statisitical analyses and at the same time revealed the nuanced interesting findings that can be missed otherwise Combining with traditional statistical analyses with visualization techniques has provided a more detailed picture of learners’ behaviors in an adaptive learning envuronment Such research should provide useful insights about using analytics to understand how learners use an adaptive learning system