Data Analytics in Schools

The main purpose of the thesis is to investigate the use of data analytics in schools. Since, Kazakhstani educational organizations have gone through the long process of digitalization within last two decades. Paper has attempted to analyse whether educators and schools in general are aware of modern data analytics techniques and practices applied in the educational process. It was assumed that due to rapid globalization and free access to information, Kazakhstani schools could have already begun applying such practices. Thus, the main goal of the thesis was to depict the current situation with respect to the use of data analytics in the public and private schools. Since, it is important to understand if the schools are not only presumedly but also practically keep up with the times. Paper aimed at finding valuable insights and reasonable relations to derive the conclusions based on the obtained results. To achieve it paper has used three steps methodology to collect both qualitative and quantitative data. For instance, online survey was the key mode of getting the quantitative data, whereas interviews and focus group were the means of obtaining the qualitative information. Paper has focused on the schools located only in Almaty province. However, since Kazakhstan is an unitarian country, it is not expected that schools will have completely different teaching practices across the country. Thus, it is possible to extrapolate the findings of the thesis, but it was not the aim of the paper and only collected data has been analysed. The outcome of the thesis has shown that overall level of awareness of existence of data analytics is not extremely low, but its general use is found only in 16% of the observations. Also, it has been seen that young generation of educators apply data analytics practices more often. The main limitation of the research was the lack of student performance data to identify whether there is a correlation between grades and use of data analysis in teaching process. Nevertheless, it can serve as a ground base and motivation for the further researches in the field.