1 Data Analytics and Decision-Making in Education: Towards the Educational Data Scientist as a Key Actor in Schools and Higher Education Institutions Tommaso Agasisti Alex J. Bowers Politecnico di Milano School of Management Teachers College, Columbia University
[email protected] [email protected] ABSTRACT:1 1990s, school principals, teachers, parents, stakeholders In this chapter, we outline the importance of data usage for and policy-makers started looking at quantitative data as improving policy-making (at the system level), an indispensable source for making decisions, formulating management of educational institutions and pedagogical diagnoses about strengths and weaknesses of institutions, approaches in the classroom. We illustrate how traditional and assessing the effects of initiatives and policies, etc. data analyses are becoming gradually substituted by more (Bowers, 2008; Mandinach, Honey, Light, & Brunner, sophisticated forms of analytics, and we provide a 2008; Wayman, 2005; Wayman, Stringfield, & classification for these recent movements (in particular Yakimowski, 2004). The diffusion of organizations and learning analytics, academic analytics and educational data initiatives such as Education for the Future mining). After having illustrated some examples of recent (http://eff.csuchico.edu) in the USA, or the DELECA – applications, we warn against potential risks of inadequate Developing Leadership Capacity for data-informed school analytics in education, and list a number of barriers that improvement project (http://www.deleca.org) in Europe, impede the widespread application of better data use. As give testimony to a growing attention to the clever, implications, we call for a development of a more robust intensive and informed use of data for improving schools’ professional role of data scientists applied to education, activities and results.