A review on data fusion in multimodal learning analytics and educational data mining

Th e new educational models such as Smart Learning environments use of digita l and context - aware devices to facilitate the learning process . In this new educational scenario, a huge quantity of multimodal students' data from a variety of different sources can be captured, fused and analyze. It offers to researchers and educators a unique opportunity of being able to discover new knowledge to better understand the learning process and to intervene if necessary. However, it is necessary t o apply correctly d ata f usion approaches and techniques in order to combine various sources of Multimodal Learning Data (MLA) . The se sources or modalities in MLA include audio, video, electrodermal activity data, eye - tracking, user logs and click - stream data, but also learning artifacts and more natural human signals such as gestures, gaze, speech or writing. This survey introduces data fusion in Learning Analytics (LA) and Educational Data Mining (EDM) and how these data fusion techniques have been applied in Smart Learning. It shows the current state of the art by reviewing the main publications, the main type of fused educational data, and the data fusion approaches and techniques used in EDM/LA, as well as the main open problems, trends and challenges in th is specific research area.