Demystification of Artificial Intelligence in Education – How much AI is really in the Educational Technology?

Abstract

The data-driven development of education through Learning Analytics in combination with Artificial Intelligence is an emerging field in the education sector. In the field of Artificial Intelligence in Education, numerous studies and research have been carried out over the past 60 years, and since then drastic changes have taken place. In the first part of this paper we present a brief overview of the current status of Learning Analytics and Artificial Intelligence in education. In order to develop a better understanding of the relationship between Learning Analytics and Artificial Intelligence in education, we outline the relationship between the two phenomena. The results show that the previous studies only vaguely distinguish between them: the terms are often used synonymously. In the second part of the paper we focus on the question why the European market currently has hardly any real applications for Artificial Intelligence in education. The research is based on a meta-investigation of data-driven business models, in particular the so-called Educational Technology providers. The core of the analysis is the question of how data-driven these companies really are, how much Learning Analytics and Artificial Intelligence is applied and whether there is a causal connection between the growth of the Educational Technology market and the application relevance of Artificial Intelligence in Education. In the scientific and public discourse, we can observe a distortion between the theoretical-conjunctive understanding of the application of Artificial Intelligence in Education and the current practical relevance.