Enhancing historical thinking through learning analytics in Primary Education: A bridge to formative assessment

History teaching from early educational stages not only should assess the student's ability to memorise historical content, but also their ability to think historically. Traditional summative tests do not enable teachers to continuously monitor the progress of students. This study evaluates the effect in history learning of incorporating learning analytics (LA) in terms of academic achievement and self-efficacy. Seventy-six elementary students aged 10–12 years old participated in the study. The results indicate that the integration of LA particularly helped students with low historical knowledge and enabled the prediction of academic achievement, especially in historical thinking. The results also highlight the disparity between students' knowledge and students' self-efficacy during the lessons, and what they demonstrate in exams, indicating the need to incorporate tasks before exams that allow students to identify their limitations and misconceptions. These results suggest that LA in history teaching may provide teachers with useful information for formative assessment.