Background. In alignment with policy initiatives and increased attention for evidence-informed practices in education, schools are stimulated to make use of different sources of evidence to give shape to their educational practices at the classroom, and school level (Wiseman, 2010). Following the digital transformation in education, Learning Analytics (LA) from learning management systems have been introduced in schools. LA assess, elicit and analyze information about learners and learning environments for the optimization of learning processes, and educational decision making in organizations (Ifenthaler & Drachsler, 2020; Rodríguez-Triana et al., 2016). This also connects to efforts regarding schools’ quality assurance processes. In secondary education, LA are currently primarily used at the classroom level to tailor instruction (Wise & Jung, 2019). The use of LA by educational professionals at the team and school level for quality assurance purposes, however, remains largely un(der)explored (Ifenthaler, 2021). This study investigates the central research question: “What affordances and constraints do educational professionals in secondary schools identify for using of LA in quality assurances processes?”. Method. A case study design was followed enabling to collect in-depth information regarding secondary schools in Flanders (Belgium). Five schools were selected given specific criteria (such as high involvement in digitalization) in which interviews were conducted with 25 school leaders, teachers, and staff members with a particular interest in LA and quality assurance. Interviews were analyzed following a thematic analysis approach (Braun & Clarke, 2012). Results. Results indicate that the use of LA for quality assurance purposes is limited. The findings from LA are hardly shared and discussed onto the team level. Teachers lack the necessary competences to start from a research question to make use of the LA in a targeted way. Staff members also address the difficulty of underlying ethical considerations to work with these kinds of data. It seems unclear as to what extent they can rely on LA to signal potential problems for educational quality. Implications. The current study underlines the need for more capacity building at the school team level for the use of LA in quality assurance processes, a guiding compass at the ethical level for the use of LA, and the anticipation of an organizational culture that fosters collaborating regarding LA. Based on the current findings, future research might look for appropriate compositions or profiles of competences that might inform schools to strengthen their evidence-informed way of working with learning analytics for quality assurance.

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