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From Reflection to Insight: Using LLM to Improve Learning Analytics in Higher Education

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Conference

2025 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Location

Montreal, Quebec, Canada

Publication Date

June 22, 2025

Start Date

June 22, 2025

End Date

August 15, 2025

Conference Session

Computing and Information Technology Division (CIT) Technical Session 6

Tagged Division

Computing and Information Technology Division (CIT)

Page Count

10

DOI

10.18260/1-2--56616

Permanent URL

https://peer.asee.org/56616

Download Count

23

Paper Authors

biography

Nasrin Dehbozorgi Kennesaw State University Orcid 16x16 orcid.org/0009-0004-2748-0654

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I’m an Assistant Professor of Software Engineering and the director of the AIET lab in the College of Computing and Software Engineering at Kennesaw State University. With a Ph.D. in Computer Science and prior experience as a software engineer in the industry, my interest in both academic and research activities has laid the foundation to work on advancing educational technologies and pedagogical interventions.

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biography

Mourya Teja Kunuku Kennesaw State University

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Ph.D. student at Kennesaw State university. Research Interest include Deep learning, Generative AI, LLMs

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Abstract

The integration of Artificial Intelligence (AI) into educational tools has revolutionized modern education by enhancing pedagogical practices and learning analytics. The emergence of Large Language Models (LLMs) has further accelerated this transformation by enabling complex analysis of textual data that would otherwise be labor-intensive for instructors. Reflective writing is a key component in educational practices which foster deeper cognitive and metacognitive skills among students. Typically, reflective techniques require students to articulate their learning processes in natural language. However, the effectiveness of these practices is maximized when students receive feedback on their reflective writings. Due to the time-consuming nature of analyzing these writings, the implementation of reflective practices has been limited. In this study, we introduce ‘Student-Reflect,’ an LLM-powered tool designed for the automated analysis of student reflections. Student-Reflect extracts students’ learning outcomes and challenges from their reflective submissions and visualizes the frequency distribution of these topics through a dynamic dashboard. This visualization enables instructors to apply timely interventions after each class session based on students’ learning trajectories. The analysis of the model's performance is promising, demonstrating over 95% accuracy in extracting meaningful topics for analyzing students' understanding of the subject matter.

Dehbozorgi, N., & Kunuku, M. T. (2025, June), From Reflection to Insight: Using LLM to Improve Learning Analytics in Higher Education Paper presented at 2025 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition , Montreal, Quebec, Canada . 10.18260/1-2--56616

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