Teachers’ use of data from digital learning platforms for instructional design: a systematic review

Data-based decision-making is a well-established field of research in education. In particular, the potential of data use for addressing heterogeneous learning needs is emphasized. With data collected during the learning process of students, teachers gain insight into the performance, strengths, and weaknesses of their students and are potentially able to adjust their teaching accordingly. Digital media are becoming increasingly important for the use of learning data. Students can use digital learning platforms to work on exercises and receive direct feedback, while teachers gain data on the students’ learning processes. Although both data-based decision-making and the use of digital media in schools are already widely studied, there is little evidence on the combination of the two issues. This systematic review aims to answer to what extent the connection between data-based decision-making and the use of digital learning platforms has already been researched in terms of using digital learning data for further instructional design. The analysis of n = 11 studies revealed that the use of data from digital learning platforms for instructional design has so far been researched exploratively. Nevertheless, we gained initial insights into which digital learning platforms teachers use, which data they can obtain from them, and how they further use these data.