One of the ongoing difficulties in learning analytics research is understanding their real impact on teaching and learning. The link between learning analytics and a conscious change in strategy is difficult to establish, as is the connection between the strategy change and learning performance. The great number of internal and external variables involved in learning experiences make impact difficult to recognise and measure. Affordance Theory is a useful approach for exposing the links between an object (learning analytics) and the actionable properties that a user (educators and learners) can most readily perceive. In this presentation, I will discuss a qualitative investigation of the affordances of learning analytics from the perspectives of 25 educators with different roles within their educational institutions. More specifically, I will discuss how we identified affordances that were connected with changes in strategy, through exploring real challenges educators experience and how they currently resolve them. The presentation will provide a brief introduction to the study and a discussion of the current findings, which highlight 4 main factors in how learning analytics are used: the connections between an educator's epistemic beliefs about learning and the purpose of education, their idea of learning success, their perception of threats or resources in delivering a successful learning experience, and the types of data they would consider as evidence in recognising or regulating their strategies. This evidence can support stakeholders involved in learning analytics research with a new perspective on how to approach the subject of impact. 

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