A collaboration literacy analytics framework (CLAF): Investigating students’ perspectives on collaboration quality indicators and feedback utilization

Abstract Multimodal learning analytics (MMLA) has improved our understanding of collaboration quality, yet current approaches often overlook students’ perspectives and fail to provide meaningful, student-centered feedback that enhances collaboration literacy. This study addresses these gaps by investigating students’ perspectives on collaboration quality indicators and their feedback utilization preferences. Through an open-ended survey of 290 university students who used a collaboration analytics (CA) tool over 12 weeks of collaborative activities, we identified key individual- and group-level indicators spanning the process, outcome, and review layers. These indicators articulate how learners conceptualize the interplay between individual behaviors, group dynamics, and collaborative outcomes. Additionally, we identified distinct approaches to real-time and post hoc feedback utilization, highlighting their complementary roles in supporting collaboration literacy. Findings led to the development of a conceptual collaboration literacy analytics framework (CLAF) that integrates evaluation metrics, indicator interdependencies, and feedback mechanisms. The framework captures the dynamic relationship between process and outcome measures, connects individual- and group-level indicators, and incorporates review mechanisms as student-driven quality assurance. By guiding future CSCL research and practice, the framework provides an analytical basis for examining collaboration quality and studying how assessment processes and integrated feedback support collaboration literacy.