Computers and Education: Artificial Intelligence 2 (2021) 100016

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Computers and Education: Artificial Intelligence

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/caeai

Comparison of learning analytics and educational data mining: A topic

modeling approach
David J. Lemay 1, Clare Baek b, *, Tenzin Doleck c
1
McGill University, USA
b
University of Southern California, USA
c
Simon Fraser University, USA

A R T I C L E I N F O A B S T R A C T

Keywords: Educational data mining and learning analytics, although experiencing an upsurge in exploration and use,
Educational data mining continue to elude precise definition; the two terms are often interchangeably used. This could be owing to the fact
Learning analytics that the two fields exhibit common thematic elements. One avenue to provide clarity, uniformity, and consistency
Topic modeling
around the two fields, is to identify similarities and differences in topics between the two evolving fields. This
Structural topic modeling (stm)
paper conducted a topic modeling analysis of articles related to educational data mining and learning analytics to
reveal thematic features of the two fields. Specifically, we employed structural topic modeling to identify the
topics of the two fields from the abstracts. We apply structural topic modeling on N¼192 articles for educational
data mining and N¼489 articles for learning analytics. We infer five-topic models for both educational data
mining and learning analytics. We find that while there appears to be disciplinary differences in terms of research
focus, there is little support for a clear distinction between the two disciplines, beyond their different lineage. The
trend points to a convergence within the field of educational research on the applications of advanced statistical
learning techniques to extract actionable insights from large data streams for optimizing teaching and learning.
Both fields have converged on an increasing focus on student behaviors over the last five years.

1. Introduction discovery. As information has become more plentiful, new approaches of

Artificial intelligence (AI) research in the field of education is still in
its early development. AI in education is best represented by two data-
centric fields that have arisen in the last few decades (Baek & Doleck,
2020), educational data mining (EDM) and learning analytics (LA), that
exploit machine learning in educational research. Many reviews to date
have attempted to describe these two complementary fields which
evolved as a result of the democratization of access to computing power
and open source and open data movements in educational research
(Aldowah et al., 2019; Baker and Inventado, 2014; Calvet Li~ nan and Juan
Perez, 2015; Ihantola et al., 2015; Papamitsiou and Economides, 2014;
Romero and Ventura, 2020).
“Data mining based on educational data is named as “educational
data mining” and the use of the patterns based on educational/instruc-
tional data is called learning analytics (Sahin & Yurdugul, 2019, p. 122).
Data mining goes back to the initial development of electronic record
keeping and the advent of object-relational databases and the exploita-
tion of structured records through pattern analysis for knowledge
leveraging this data into actionable insights has transformed practices.
Learning analytics, like management analytics and business intelligence
before it, is predicated on leveraging educational data for informing its
own ends, that is, teaching and learning.
The empirical research tends to treat LA and EDM if not as coexten-
sive, at least as two kindred endeavors dedicated to the application of
advanced statistical learning methods to the analysis of learning and
educational data respectively. While many treat the two fields as
generally interchangeable (Romero and Ventura, 2020), some adherents
defend a clear boundary between the two fields. The primary argument
relies on an exclusionary definition of their respective fields of inquiry. In
essence, the difference hinges on the recognition that learning is not
education and vice versa, regardless how much overlap there might be.
Thus, LA is focused on the processes influencing learning, at the indi-
vidual and social levels, whereas EDM is focused on knowledge discovery
from all educational data sources produced by individuals and groups of
individuals supported by institutional frameworks. In practice, it may be
harder to discern a clear boundary since research amply demonstrates

* Corresponding author.
E-mail addresses: david.lemay@mail.mcgill.ca (D.J. Lemay), clarebae@usc.edu, clarebae@usc.edu (C. Baek), tdoleck@sfu.ca (T. Doleck).

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.caeai.2021.100016
Received 17 December 2020; Received in revised form 9 March 2021; Accepted 14 March 2021
2666-920X/© 2021 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-
nc-nd/4.0/).
D.J. Lemay et al. Computers and Education: Artificial Intelligence 2 (2021) 100016

that institutional factors influence individual learning behaviors (Baeten
et al., 2010; Prosser and Sze, 2014; Vermunt and Donche, 2017). Indeed,
the empirical literature also shows a great deal of similarity in the range
and diversity of research topics and analytical methods.
Papamitsiou and Economides (2014) summarize the salient differ-
ence between LA and EDM forming consensus in the field as: “LA adopts a
holistic framework, seeking to understand systems in their full
complexity. On the other hand, EDM adopts a reductionistic viewpoint by
analyzing individual components, seeking for new patterns in data and
modifying respective algorithms” (p. 50). However, Aldowah et al.
(2019) identify four dimensions of research that crosscut the disciplinary
differences. Both LA and EDM conducted research along the four
following dimensions: computer-supported learning analytics, which
includes dropout/retention, student performance, and evaluation;
computer-supported predictive analytics, including collaborative
learning and self-learning; computer-supported behavioral analytics,
focused on modelling student learning; and computer-supported
visualization analytics, such as graph or network based methods.
In a theoretically informed study, Xing et al. (2015) explicitly
distinguish between the contributions of LA, EDM, and human-computer
interaction (HCI). However, the overarching theory is activity theory as
formulated by Leontev (1981) and collaborators. All three disciplines
have been influenced by constructivist psychology, which is especially
evidenced by shared interests in group processes and social interaction.
While more disciplinary exchange can help bridge differences (Siemens
and Baker, 2012), we wonder to what extent these two disciplines are
indeed distinct and whether the differences are more taxonomic than
operative in practice. The fertility of exchange between the two disci-
plines would suggest that EDM and LA are two specimens of the same
genus if not the same species.
Romero and Ventura (2020) report that most EDM and LA research
are conducted in the same research settings: virtual learning environ-
ments, learning management systems, cognitive tutors, and other
computer-based learning environments, including mobile devices and

Table 1
Extant Reviews on both EDM and LA.
Title Author Focus Method Findings

Educational Data Mining and
Learning Analytics: An Updated
Survey
Educational Data Mining and
Learning Analytics: Past,
Present, and Future
Differentiating between
Educational Data Mining and
Learning Analytics: A
Bibliometric Approach
Educational Data Mining and
Learning Analytics for 21st
century Higher Education: A
Review and Synthesis
Research in Learning Analytics
and Educational Data Mining to
Measure Self-Regulated
Learning: a Systematic Review
Educational Data Mining and
Learning Analytics: Differences,
Similarities, and Time Evolution
Application of big data in
education data mining and
learning analytics – a literature
review
Learning Analytics and
Educational Data Mining in
Practice: A systematic literature
review of empirical evidence
Learning Analytics and
Educational Data Mining: an
Overview of Recent Techniques
Romero and Reviewed milestones, knowledge Systematic review & - EDM and LA research are often conducted in the
Ventura (2020) discovery, educational environments, frequency analysis same research settings (e.g., virtual learning
stools, datasets, methods, objectives, environment).
and future trends for both EDM and LA. - EDM and LA are in the process of moving from
the lab to the general market to be used by
educational institutions.
- EDM and LA tools are not easy for educators to
use.
Şahin and Compared EDM and LA by looking at Temporal comparison - Similarities and differences of EDM and LA are
Yurdugül (2019) historical development of each field and on process and application.
future direction of each field. - EDM focuses on automated systems whereas LA
focuses on designs where a human is present
- There has been an ongoing confusion of the two
fields.
Dormezil et al. Compared similarities and differences Bibliometric analysis, - Major research themes of LA focus on student-
(2020) between EDM and LA Keyword analysis using focused learning objectives.
natural language - Major research themes of EDM focus on the
processing algorithms behind predicting student
performance.
- Bibliometric perspective reveals that EDM is a
subdomain of LA.
Aldowah et al. Reviewed EDM and LA in higher Systematic review, - EDM and LA are used to provide opportunities
(2019) education by identifying and comparing frequency analysis and solutions regarding computer-supported
EDM and LA techniques. analytics.
- EDM and LA applications in higher education
can provide benefits in developing a student-
focused strategy.
ElSayed et al. Reviewed EDM and LA literature on Systematic review, - There is an increasing interest in the use of EDM
(2019) measuring self-regulated learning in frequency analysis and LA for assessing self-regulated learning in
students. students.
- Most studies used a combination of self-reported
instruments and LA and EDM tools.
Linan and Perez Compared similarities and differences Comparison by topics, - Popularity of LA and EDM have grown from
(2015) between EDM and LA by listing goals trend analysis 2010 to 2014
and methods - EDM focuses more on classification and
classification whereas LA focuses more on social
network analysis
- However, many similarities exist between both
fields: goals, methodologies, techniques
Sin and Muthu Reviewed literature on EDM and LA by Frequency analysis, - Major trends of EDM articles are about new EDM
(2015) looking at publication type, year, and trend analysis, techniques and analyzing student performance
authors. summary, thematic - Major trends of Learning Analytics articles are
analysis about development of LA design and models,
using LA as a tool for assessment, and exploring
EDM and LA methods
Papamitsiou and Reviewed EDM and LA case studies by Systematic review - Four distinct major axes of the LA and EDM
Economides analyzing research questions, empirical research include: pedagogy-oriented
(2014) methodology, and findings. issues, contextualization of learning, networked
learning, educational resources handing.
Steiner et al. Summarized key concepts, objectives, Summary overview - LA can be used in educational games and serious
(2014) methods, visualizations, and games to collect and analyze learners’ data.
applications of LA and EDM. - LA has shifted its focus from technical
orientation to educational practice.

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D.J. Lemay et al.
massive open online courses (MOOCs) and social learning platforms.
Researchers collect all kinds of data including “login frequency, number
of chat messages between participants and questions submitted to the
instructors, response times on answering questions and solving tasks,
resources accessed, previous grades, final grades in courses, detailed
profiles, preferences from LMSs, forum and discussion posts, affect ob-
servations (e.g. bored, frustrated, confused, happy, etc.) and many more”
(p. 52). Researchers also employ a range of analytical methods including
“classification, followed by clustering, regression (logistic/multiple) and
more recently, discovery with models. In addition, algorithmic criteria
computed for comparison of methods include precision, accuracy,
sensitivity, coherence, fitness measures (e.g. cosine, confidence, lift,
etc.), similarity weights, etc” (p. 53). The main areas of research include
“student/student behavior modeling and prediction of performance,
followed by increase of students’ and teachers’ reflection and awareness
and improvement of provided feedback and assessment services” (p.53).
Thus, it is unclear to what extent these two fields are effectively different
in practice. Actually assessing the differences between the two disciplines
will require a systematic analysis of their research production as ulti-
mately these research communities are defined by their research
production.
As shown in Table 1 below, there have been previous studies that
reviewed the status of the EDM and LA literature. These previous reviews
examined varieties of components of LA and EDM such as methods, data,
tools, past and future trends, and publication type. Most of these reviews
used a traditional narrative literature review approach along with fre-
quency analysis of a component of interest.
Topic modeling is a valuable and appropriate tool to uncover mean-
ingful topics from large quantities of textual data and yet largely unex-
plored by education related research (Chen et al., 2020a). There have
been a few examples of educational technology related literature reviews
successfully incorporating a topic modeling approach to analyze ab-
stracts and keywords of articles to uncover research topics and their trend
over a time period (e.g., Chen et al., 2020a; Chen et al., 2020b). In
comparing EDM and LA specifically, Dormezil et al.‘s (2020) review is an
example of using topic modeling technique for analysis. Dormezil et al.
(2020) retrieved the keywords from the literature via bibliometric
analysis and used natural language processing to examine the categories
of EDM and LA keywords separately. The categories of the keywords
reveal that EDM focuses on the algorithms of predicting student perfor-
mance whereas LA focuses on student-focused learning objectives.
To our knowledge, there has not been a literature review that
compared both abstracts and keywords from EDM and LA articles and
also compared the changing research trend over time. Therefore, we aim
to fill this gap with the current literature review. Specifically, we extend
the existing literature by using a topic modeling approach to do the
following: First, we compare the changing trend of each field overtime
through keyword analysis over the five-year period from 2015 to 2019.
Second, we investigate the general focus of each field holistically by
analyzing the abstracts of each article in our literature collection using a
topic modeling approach. Third, we investigate the changing focus of
each field by analyzing the abstracts of the literature separately by year
for the five-year period. In doing so, we compare the overall landscape of
the literature as well as the changing trend of EDM and LA by comparing
the analysis results using a topic modeling approach.
This study is informed by communities of practice perspective
(Wenger, 1998). Specifically, the fields of LA and EDM are conceived as a
constellation of practices producing knowledge artifacts following reified
and codified activities. These communities are mutually interacting and
mutually informing. They are involved in similar pursuits and share the
same concerns respecting the object study and modes of inquiry. Critical
self-reflection helps to collectively negotiate the object and modes of the
collective research endeavor. This negotiation of meaning is foundational
to the processes of mutual engagement, shared enterprise, and shared
repertoire which characterize communities of practice. There is an
inherently physicalist assumption in early communities of practice
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Computers and Education: Artificial Intelligence 2 (2021) 100016
research, but the theory has been easily extended to the online envi-
ronment (Vescio et al., 2008). Suitably enough for our research concern,
the CoP framework has been embraced and adapted in the specific
context of creating teacher professional learning communities meant to
bring teachers (and researchers) together from beyond the school walls.
2. Purpose and research question
The need for comparing EDM and LA is warranted given the ambi-
guity in the definitions and goals of the two emerging fields (Baek &
Doleck, 2021). Hence, the purpose of this study is to understand the
similarities and differences between EDM and LA, through an approach
that is yet to receive research attention—topic modeling of abstract data
from articles on EDM and LA to extract underlying topics. The present
article attempts to answer the following research question: What are the
similarities and differences between educational data mining and
learning analytics? By addressing this question, we can contribute to a
better understanding of the field and its delineations into sub speciali-
zations, their boundaries and overlaps and their tensions and
contradictions.
3. Method
3.1. Research design
In the present study, we employ an exploratory retrospective design
to attempt to describe disciplinary differences between the LA and EDM
communities through the analysis of research abstracts as the canonical
artifact generated across all disciplinary boundaries.
3.2. Search and screening strategy
Our data collection and analysis were conducted in several stages
(Fig. 1). First, we searched for EDM articles in the Web of Science data-
base with the following indexes: SCI-EXPANDED, SSCI, A&HCI, CICI–S,
CPCI-SSH, BKCI–S, BKCI-SSH, EDCL, CCR-EXPENDED, IC. The web of
science data base has been recommended by previous literature reviews
as a database with a collection of high-quality papers (Xia and Zhong,
2018; Xie et al., 2019; Fu and Hwang, 2018). We used the search terms,
“Educational Data Mining” (TOPIC: (“Learning Analytics”) AND DOCU-
MENT TYPES: (Article)) and filtering the time period to be 2015–2019.
We followed the same exact process for LA articles, except using the
search terms “Learning Analytics” (TOPIC: (“Learning Analytics”) AND
DOCUMENT TYPES: (Article)). We chose the search terms to be
“Educational Data Mining” and “Learning Analytics” to collect articles for
the respective fields since we wish to examine the overall similarities and
differences of the two fields. Inserting other search terms would have
narrowed down the search results as well as including articles from other
related fields.
The initial search results for EDM was 281 articles and LA 850 arti-
cles. We screened for relevant articles following our inclusion and
exclusion criteria (Table 2). Particularly, we only included empirical
articles and excluded theoretical or conceptual papers. For example, ar-
ticles that propose a new learning analytics model without empirical data
were excluded. As we stated previously, we aimed to examine how each
of the two fields is operating in practice and empirical papers reveal this
actual operation in research.
We followed a two-step process for screening articles. First, we read
the abstracts of the articles to exclude articles and sort out articles that
require further investigation as some abstracts warranted a close reading
of the full text to ensure that the studies meet our inclusion criteria.
Second, for those studies that required further investigation (e.g.,
whether a study tested a new learning analytics model with empirical
data or merely presented a hypothetical model), we conducted a full-text
screening to determine whether to include or exclude the articles. The
screening process led to the collection of 492 articles for LA and 194
D.J. Lemay et al.
Fig. 1. Study Selection flowchart for Educational Data Mining and Learning Analytics.
articles for EDM. Fig. 2 shows the distribution of the articles in our final
collection for LA and EDM by year. Lastly, we created two separate
documents containing each field’s abstracts. The articles without ab-
stracts were excluded from the analysis as our primary interest for topic
modeling is abstracts. This resulted in the final collection of 489 articles
for LA and 192 articles for EDM.
3.3. Abstract analysis process
The overall topic modeling process to analyze the abstracts is
graphically represented in Fig. 3. First, we created a corpus of 489 doc-
uments (abstracts) of LA and a corpus of 192 documents (abstracts) of
EDM. Second, we created a document feature matrix (DFM), which is a
table with rows as texts and columns as words. Then, we cleaned the DFM
to prepare for topic modeling analysis by removing punctuation,
numbers, stopwords, and symbols in R Studio. We also removed the
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Computers and Education: Artificial Intelligence 2 (2021) 100016
following words before our analysis: results, result, study, can, paper,
using, use, used, research. Due to the nature of how abstracts are written,
many abstracts included the words listed above as authors report their
findings in their abstract. To ensure that our topic modeling analysis
includes meaningful words only, we decided to exclude these words.
Lastly, we trimmed the DFM to remove features that are rare and ubiq-
uitous to ensure less noise and efficient processing of the DFM.
Next, we used the stm package and quanteda package in R Studio to
run the structural topic modeling. Structural topic modeling is an unsu-
pervised method which allows researchers to discover topics in a docu-
ment of words as each document can be composed of multiple topics
(Roberts et al., 2014). Since stm is an unstructured method, we first ran a
set of models by setting topic numbers to 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10. After
running the analysis for each number of topics, we inspected and
compared the 5 different models by adapting a criteria used by Chen et al.
(2020). Specifically, we looked for the following: the terms in each topic
D.J. Lemay et al. Computers and Education: Artificial Intelligence 2 (2021) 100016

Table 2
Inclusion and exclusion criteria for collecting educational data mining and
learning analytics literature.
Inclusion
Timelines Published in 2015–2019
Type of Scholarly journal articles
document
Peer-reviewed
Conference papers
Availability of Full-text access available
Access
Language Written in English
Relevance Empirical papers (including
pilot studies, preliminary
findings, testing results with
samples)
All grade level (e.g., k-12,
higher education, adults)
Pertaining to learning
environments (e.g., elementary
school classroom, MOOC for
higher education)
The primary purpose is
exploring educational context
(e.g., training teachers)
Exclusion
Published before 2015
Not peer-reviewed
Full-text access not available
Written in other languages than
English
Theoretical/conceptual papers,
literature reviews, policy
reviews, not about Learning
Analytics, not about
Educational Data Mining
Pertaining to other
environments than learning
The primary purpose is not
exploring educational context
(e.g., developing machines not
related to learning)
et al., 2011; Pandur et al., 2020). Semantic coherence evaluates fre-
quency of co-occurrence of terms with the highest probability in a given
topic such that the semantic coherence increases when the co-occurrence
of the two terms with the highest probability in a topic increases (Pandur
et al., 2020). The lower bound indicates convergence of the model and
the model is considered converged when the bound has small enough
change between iterations (Roberts et al., 2014).
For both LA and EDM, N ¼ 5 was most ideal because it had a relatively
high held-out likelihood, high semantic coherence, and low residuals
collectively compared to other values of N. Second, the growth or fall of
the value of each diagnostic measure slowed down at N ¼ 5 (Pandur
et al., 2020).
For the final analysis, we chose N ¼ 5 for the number of topics as
described above using the stm package and quanteda package in R studio
and set the parameter for each topic to contain 10 terms with the highest
topic probability. After generating a list of five topics with ten terms each,
we also plotted the stm model using the stm package to visualize the
expected proportion of the corpus that belongs to each topic (Figs. 6 and
7). The three words listed with each topic are the top three words asso-
ciated with the topic (Roberts et al., 2014). Overall, we followed the
heuristic model of stm features (Roberts et al., 2014): evaluation phase
for determining the number of topics and number of terms to be listed,
understanding phase for examining the topics generated, and visualizing
phase for visualizing the topics listed through plots.

4. Abstract analysis and results

could form a meaningful topic together, topics aligned with important
EDM and LA fields, and there was no overlap between topics within one
topic model. Based on this criteria, we determined that N ¼ 5 is the best
number of topics for both articles in EDM and LA.
We ran diagnostic tests for the number of topics to make sure that the
ideal number of topics is five and the model with topic number 5 per-
forms better compared to other numbers of topics. We examined several
components by running the stm package in R studio to conduct this
diagnostic test: held-out likelihood, residuals, semantic coherence, and
lower bound (Figs. 4 and 5). Held-out likelihood evaluates how well the
information learned from a corpus applies to unseen documents (Chang
et al., 2009). A model that performs better would have a higher held-out
probability (Wallach et al., 2009). Residuals can be used to evaluate
whether the estimated number of topics produce a good model fit; large
residuals, over dispersion of residuals, can indicate that the true number
of topics is greater than the number of estimated topics (Taddy, 2012).
Semantic coherence can be used to predict topic quality in a model and it
corresponds well with the human judgment of topic quality (Mimno
4.1. Common topics for 2015–2019
To investigate the common topics studied in LA papers and EDM
papers from 2015 to 2019, we analyzed the abstracts of the papers using
stm topic modeling. For LA papers, we found that the most common topic
(Topic 4) was on students’ academic performance and engagement in
online courses (Table 3, Fig. 6). The second most common topic was on
analytics of student data through pattern findings and different tech-
niques (Topic 1). The third most common topic was providing feedback
as a teaching tool through assessment and activities (Topic 2). The topic
on designing a model, platform, or a system based on learner information
was the fourth most common topic (Topic 5) and social network analysis
about students’ collaboration, discussion, and engagement as a group
online was the fifth most common topic (Topic 3).
For EDM papers, we found that the most common topic (Topic 1) was
predicting students’ academic performance through educational data
mining techniques such as algorithms, prediction, and classification

Publica ons of LA and EDM from 2015-2019

160
137
140

120 113
106
100

80 71
62 65
60
39 41
40
25 22
20

0
2015 2016 2017 2018 2019

Learning Analy cs Educa onal Data Mining

Fig. 2. Publications of LA and EDM from 2015 to 2019.

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D.J. Lemay et al. Computers and Education: Artificial Intelligence 2 (2021) 100016

(Table 4, Fig. 7). The second most common topic (Topic 3) was about
outcomes of student online learning based on different environments and
activities. The third most common topic was on methods of analyzing
learners’ data (Topic 4). The fourth most common topic was on models
for assessing problems and factors of student data (Topic 5) and the fifth
most common topic was about students in engineering courses (Topic 2).

4.2. Common topics of each year from 2015 to 2019

We also investigated how research topics of the LA and EDM litera-

Fig. 3. Graphical representation of topic modeling process. N ¼ number
of topics.
ture change over the period of 2015–2019 by running stm topic modeling
separately for the abstracts of each year. Specifically, we conducted a stm
topic modeling analysis for the abstracts of the LA articles published in
each year from 2015 to 2019 and likewise for the EDM articles. As shown
in Appendix A, the topic modeling results reveal the research trend of
each field over the five-year period as well as infer how the two fields
evolve differently over the years.
The top five topics of the LA literature reveal the field’s consistent
focus on student performance and outcomes in a course as these words
constitute the top topics in every year. Some of the years consisted of
topics on social and collaboration aspects of learning. One of the top
topics of 2016 was regarding the social aspect of MOOC and one of the
top topics of 2019 was about social learning online. Interestingly, the top
topic of 2019 was about tools for data analytics although the previous
topics of the LA literature did not consist of topics regarding tools.
The top five topics of the EDM literature of each year reveal its sim-
ilarities and differences to the LA literature clearly. The top topics of the
EDM literature consistently included topics on student performance and
outcomes in a course like the LA literature. Unlike the top topics of LA,
the EDM literature did not focus on social and collaboration aspects of
learning as none of the top topics were related to those throughout the
years. Also, the LA topics included “model” as one of the top topics in
2015 but the years after 2015 did not have topics regarding “model.”

Fig. 4. Diagnostic values by number of topics for learning analytics.

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D.J. Lemay et al.
Fig. 5. Diagnostic values by number of topics for educational data mining.
Fig. 6. Expected proportion per topic in the corpus and three top words asso-
ciated with the topic for Learning Analytics.
4.3. Keyword analysis and results
To compare research topics of LA and EDM, we also collected the
keywords from each article, which we found below the abstract of the
articles. For the LA articles, 53 of the total collection did not contain
keywords and for the EDM articles, 10 of the total collection did not
contain keywords. These articles were excluded from the analysis. We
conducted the analysis for the keywords in two steps. First, we conducted
frequency analysis using tidytext package in R Studio for the LA and EDM
articles separately. Second, we chose six of the frequently used terms and
conducted frequency analysis of each of these terms over the 5-year
period for LA and EDM. For this analysis of terms over time, we used
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Computers and Education: Artificial Intelligence 2 (2021) 100016
Fig. 7. Expected proportion per topic in the corpus and three top words asso-
ciated with the topic for Educational Data Mining.
the quanteda package in R Studio. This section examines the frequently
used keywords for LA and EDM as well as the trend over time of these
terms.
Table 5 below lists some of the frequently used keywords for LA and
EDM. The list of frequently used words depict the close connection of LA
and EDM. The top keywords of LA consist of EDM related terms:
educational (N ¼ 64), data (N ¼ 116), mining (N ¼ 56). Similarly, the top
keywords of EDM consist of LA related terms: learning (N ¼ 145), ana-
lytics (N ¼ 45). The list of top keywords reflects the differences of the
fields as the LA keywords include “social” and “collaborative”, the EDM
keywords do not. The top EDM keyword list includes “prediction”,
“machine”, and “clustering” but the LA keywords do not contain these
D.J. Lemay et al. Computers and Education: Artificial Intelligence 2 (2021) 100016

Table 3 Fig. 8 shows that the trend of the keywords, “systems” and “collab-
Results for learning analytics. orative” become increasingly similar starting in 2017 and they start to
Topic 1 Topic 2 Topic 3 Topic 4 Topic 5 overlap starting in 2018. There was a notable peak for the keyword
“online” in 2018. The frequency of “online” is higher than all the other
1 Data Students Social Students Learners
2 Analytics Teachers Analysis Course Design key terms in 2018 and also higher than all the frequency of “online” in
3 Students Feedback Group Student Model other years. Fig. 9 shows how these keywords, that were frequently used
4 Educational Assessment Online Performance System by the LA articles, were used in the EDM articles. The keywords,
5 Education Teaching Students Online Learner “assessment” and “social”, exhibit a similar trend starting in 2017 and
6 Analysis Tool Engagement Academic Based
7 Patterns Analytics Collaborative Courses Open
they both increase after 2018. Unlike the LA articles, “systems” and
8 Different Design Groups Time Information “collaborative” do not exhibit the same trend in the EDM articles. The
9 Techniques Activities Discussion Significant Tools keyword “student” was increasingly used in the keywords of the EDM
10 Findings Student Network Engagement Platform articles starting in 2016 unlike the LA articles where “student” does not
exhibit any noticeable increase.
For the most frequently used keywords in the EDM articles, we
Table 4 examined the frequency of the six keywords: “performance”, “predic-
Results for educational data mining. tion”, “analysis”, “machine”, “classification”, “student.” We also exam-
Topic 1 Topic 2 Topic 3 Topic 4 Topic 5 ined the frequency of the same keywords for the LA articles to compare
the difference between LA and EDM. Fig. 10 shows that the keyword
1 Performance Courses Learning Data Model
2 Data Course Students Mining Students “machine” was increasingly used in the EDM articles over the years,
3 Students Students Online Learning Proposed especially starting in 2017. A notable trend is that the keyword “student”
4 Academic Data Student System Knowledge was more frequent until 2018 and the frequency of “machine” overtook
5 Student Educational Different Educational Factors “student” after 2018. Also, the frequency of “prediction” and “analysis”
6 Prediction May Outcomes Learners Problem
7 Algorithms Two Activities Analysis Assessment
trended upward. The keyword “performance” trended downward start-
8 Classification Rules Time Methods Problems ing in 2018. Fig. 11 shows that the keyword “machine” was increasingly
9 Educational Knowledge Teachers Information Models used in the LA literature over the years. Also, the keyword “classification”
10 Mining Engineering Environments Analytics Data exhibits an upward trend starting in 2018 for the LA literature although it
shows a downward trend for the EDM literature starting in 2018.

Table 5 5. Discussion
Top keywords frequency of learning analytics versus educational data mining.
Learning Analytics Frequency Educational Data Mining Words Frequency Our analysis shows that over the recent five years from 2015 to 2019,
Words the difference between the topics of the papers from the two fields is a
Learning 725 Mining 181 matter of degree rather than kind. Both fields were focused on student
Analytics 393 Data 180 performance and learning platforms, and in modelling student behavior.
Data 116 Educational 163 LA papers focused more on student engagement, teaching tools, and so-
Education 92 Learning 145 cial network analysis whereas EDM papers focused more on techniques
Online 72 Analytics 45
Analysis 72 Student 33
and methods of data analysis. This aligns with the differences delineated
Educational 64 Education 33 by the existing literature that LA focuses more on the processes of
Mining 56 Performance 28 learning of individuals and EDM focuses more on knowledge discovery
Student 52 Prediction 27 from other data sources (Papamitsiou and Economides, 2014). As most of
Social 51 Analysis 23
the reviews point out, the fields of inquiry and research settings are
Systems 38 Classification 21
Assessment 38 Clustering 17 increasingly overlapping (Aldowah et al., 2019; Papamitsiou and Econ-
Collaborative 37 Model 16 omides, 2014; Romero and Ventura, 2009). This is evidenced by the
Design 34 Decision 16 overlapping topics. The top keywords for LA are online, social, systems,
collaborative, student; whereas for EDM, they are performance, predic-
tion, analysis, machine, classification, and student. This would tend to
terms.
bear out Sahin and Yurdugul’s (2019) pragmatic distinction, whereby LA
We chose six of the most frequently used keywords for LA and
examined the frequency of these terms overtime. We chose the following
keywords: “online”, “analysis”, “social”, “systems”, “assessment”,
“collaborative.” These words are the most frequently used keywords of
LA along with “learning”, “analytics”, “data”, “education”, “educational”,
“mining”, and “student” and we chose these specific words for a more
meaningful analysis. We also examined the frequency of the same key-
words for the EDM literature to compare the difference between LA and
EDM. Since “learning”, “analytics”, “educational”, “data”, and “mining”
constitute the majority of the proportion of the frequently used key-
words, we decided that it is more suitable to analyze frequency of the
keywords rather than the proportion of the keywords although the
number of keywords may differ per year. Furthermore, due to the nature
of keywords such that a list of keywords does not yield a substantial
quantity of text, frequency analysis is a more suitable technique than
analyzing proportion. As shown in Figures 8, 9, 10, and 11, the frequency
analysis results depict a different trend across the keywords over the
years which confirms that the frequency analysis yields meaningful
Fig. 8. Trend of frequently used LA keywords over the 5-year period in the
results.
LA articles.

8
D.J. Lemay et al. Computers and Education: Artificial Intelligence 2 (2021) 100016

(Leitner et al., 2019). Involving teachers into the feedback and assess-
ment process is crucial in adopting LA and EDM models (Tsai et al.,
2019).
Our temporal analysis revealed a clear trend of moving toward a focus
on the student in both fields. We take this as further evidence that in
terms of objects and modes of inquiry both fields are increasingly over-
lapping. Romeo and Ventura (2020) found that both LA and EDM are
working increasingly toward application of insights into practice. How-
ever, as the many reviews report, most insights derived from EDM and LA
are proving resistant to uptake. Reported barriers range from technical
proficiency to issues of knowledge translation moving from the research
laboratory to the field. Many researchers in both fields are preoccupied
with the application of research findings, which shows that Sahin and
Yurdugul’s (2019) pragmatic distinction may be more illusory than not,
as both EDM and LA would appear to be contending with the perennial
appeal of the applied sciences for usefulness as disciplinary justification.
Fig. 9. Trend of frequently used LA keywords over the 5-year period in the
EDM articles. Some key distinctions between LA and EDM are worth noting; most
notable is LA’s focus on applications to teaching practice, which is
evident in the field’s top topics each year. In every year during
2015–2019, students’ performance or learning in a course (e.g., “stu-
dents, performance, course”) was one of the top topics of the LA papers’
abstracts. The consistent inclusion of “course” as one of the main topics in
the LA literature depicts the field’s focus on applications to teaching and
learning practice in academic courses. On the other hand, the top topics
of the abstracts of the EDM literature were related to “performance” and
“system” each year rather than “course” which suggests the field’s lack of
focus on applications to actual teaching practice compared to the LA
literature. Indeed, discussions on using LA techniques and LA-integrated
applications for teaching practice and inquiry, also called teaching ana-
lytics by some studies, have been a part of the LA literature since the
beginning of the field (e.g., Prieto et al., 2018; Sergis and Sampson, 2017;
Wise and Jung, 2019; Vatrapu et al., 2011). As LA’s aim is not merely on
advancing technical methods, but to make a difference in practice, future
studies should examine the status of the teaching analytics literature
(Wise and Jung, 2019). Doing so could perhaps reveal further differences
Fig. 10. Trend of frequently used EDM keywords over the 5-year period in the
between the LA and EDM literature as well as the practical applications to
EDM articles.
teaching. Generalizability and individualized learning are not among the
core topics for both fields according to our analysis, which suggests a lack
of focus on generalizability and individualized learning for both fields in
their research. Generalizability of LA and EDM models across systems
have been addressed as one of the challenges that the two fields need to
overcome (Baker, 2019; Hutt et al., 2019). Designing and deploying
models that are generalizable and meeting individual student needs are
crucial in optimizing all student learning outcomes, providing equal ac-
cess to education for everyone across digital divides, and providing an
equally applied system for all students (Leitner et al., 2019; Ferguson
et al., 2016).
One of the most common topics of EDM papers is specifically about
students from engineering courses (Table 4), which implies that the
studies are largely focusing on a specific type of sample. Focusing on one
type of learner population is undesirabble as models are developed and
decisions are made upon training data. If the training data contains
largely one type of population, this can be unfairly biased against other
populations with diverse characteristics including race, gender, career
Fig. 11. Trend of frequently used EDM keywords over the 5-year period in the
trajectory, learning needs, and experience (Hutt et al., 2019).
LA articles.
Privacy concerns and ethics of student data collection are not com-
mon topics of the discussions for the papers from both fields, although
is focused on practice, and EDM is focused on methodology.
they are critical issues for the field of big data research as a whole. Dis-
Both LA and EDM focus on students in a learning environment or
cussions on privacy and ethical concerns should address topics pertaining
during activities through looking at feedback, assessment, and outcomes.
to transparent data collection, management protocols for secure data
Investigating outcomes and feedback of students and teachers in different
storage process, ownership of data, and system in place to receive
environments is crucial to both fields. When and how to deliver feedback
learners’ consent (Leitner et al., 2019; Ferguson et al., 2016). According
is an intricate decision that requires considerable effort (Leitner et al.,
to our analysis of the LA and EDM articles in the recent five-year period of
2019). Also, teachers and other stakeholders might have ethical and
2015–2019, topics on privacy and ethics, and generalizability and indi-
privacy concerns over LA and EDM as student data are collected and thus
vidualized learning have not yet been made into the core of the discourse.
feel hesitant towards LA and EDM deployment into learning settings
This is especially striking given the current reckoning of all fields that fall

9
D.J. Lemay et al.
under the general designation of artificial intelligence. As the ability of
private and public entities to accumulate mass amounts of information
has grown, so have concerns about the reach of such unregulated use of
personal data. Data mining techniques can be exploited by powerful
statistical learning algorithms to uncover hidden patterns in behavior.
This “artificial” intelligence demonstrably has very real repercussions for
good and ill. These algorithms can be biased and can serve to perpetuate
inequalities rather than serve the best interests of students and teachers.
As such algorithms are dependent on vast amounts of stored data, and
can be trained to learn tasks that were previously the domain of hu-
manity, from visual recognition and language understanding, large-scale
data mining proffers an advantage to those capable of marshalling the
greatest computational resources. This unequal access tends to favor the
few at the expense of the many.
5.1. Recommendations
We suggest that the fields of LA and EDM ought to explore disci-
plinary blinds spots such as big data and AI ethics (Calvet Li~nan and Juan
Perez, 2015) rather than focus on their differences. As well, they ought to
focus on theory and knowledge building rather than the exploratory and
non-programmatic research approaches that have dominated the nascent
fields (Ihantola et al., 2015). Moreover, the research must demonstrate
applicability to educational practice and explore means to make research
findings and tools actionable for practitioners. For example, there is ev-
idence that visual learning analytics (Vieira et al., 2018) are amenable to
classroom practice as they are more easily understood by teachers and
students and readily applicable to the teaching and learning situations.
5.2. Limitations
As a retrospective study, no causal interpretations can be made. Our
Appendix A
Results for Learning Analytics 2015.
Results for Educational Data Mining 2015.
10
Computers and Education: Artificial Intelligence 2 (2021) 100016
study is further limited by its focus on EDM and LA research published in
the last five years only. Additionally, our focus on abstracts rather than
the full-text analysis means much data was left unexplored. However, we
feel justified as abstracts are meant to summarize the important infor-
mation and ensure a modicum of uniformity across disciplines.
5.3. Future directions
A recommendation for the two fields is to increase discussions on
privacy concerns and ethics of data collection and analysis, and protocols
to build appropriate procedures to maintain data and protect student
privacy. Also, future studies should increase discussions on universal
system design for generalizability and meeting individual student needs.
Increased discussions on privacy and ethical concerns, and universal
system design for all learners can help to challenge the status quo, expose
inequalities, and improve learning opportunities for learners in disad-
vantaged groups (Ferguson, 2019).
Funding
No funding to report.
Compliance with ethical standards
Yes.
Declaration of competing interest
None.
D.J. Lemay et al. Computers and Education: Artificial Intelligence 2 (2021) 100016

Results for Learning Analytics 2016.

Results for Educational Data Mining 2016.

Results for Learning Analytics 2017.

11
D.J. Lemay et al. Computers and Education: Artificial Intelligence 2 (2021) 100016

Results for Educational Data Mining 2017.

Results for Learning Analytics 2018.

Results for Educational Data Mining 2018.

12
D.J. Lemay et al. Computers and Education: Artificial Intelligence 2 (2021) 100016

Results for Learning Analytics 2019.

Results for Educational Data Mining 2019.

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