Exploring the Experiences That Prompt Data Literacies: A Mixed Methods Research Study

Abstract

Data permeates our digital world. As data and data visualizations become more ubiquitous in our everyday lives, individuals are required to use it as a resource for meaning making, and we as literacy researchers need to understand the ways that our literacy practices are changing because of data collection, storage, analysis, and transmission. Most work in data literacy has been focused on using data to achieve a desired outcome rather than helping individuals see themselves as capable of using data for multiple purposes and understanding data as a socially situated resource for meaning-making (Stornaiuolo, 2019). This mixed methods study investigated learners’ evolving understandings and thought processes as they used data for meaning making, including how they located, critically evaluated, synthesized, and communicated data in a graduate level, New Media and Learning course. Using a social constructivist theoretical framework, the New Literacies Theory of Change (Leu, et al., 2017) was used as a lens to understand the impacts of the Internet and technology on data literacies development. Experiential learning theory (Kolb 1984) was used to explore the impacts of the learners’ digital experiences with data on their developing understandings of data. Proudman’s (1992) conceptualization of Experiential Learning as an array of critical relationships 1) learner-to-self, 2) learner-to-others, and 3) learner-to-the world at large provided a framework for analyzing these experiences. Qualitative data sources included observational field notes, D2L discussion posts, learners’ multimodal work product, retrospective think alouds, and semi-structured interviews. Data were analyzed deductively using theoretical thematic analysis (Braun & Clark, 2006) and inductively using pattern codes (Miles et al., 2020) that emerged from the deductive analysis. Quantitative data was gathered using a pre-post course survey, and descriptive statistics were used to describe the characteristics of the responses. Findings suggest that data literacies are a complex construct that require individuals to bring data into perspective and then re-examine it from multiple perspectives. Guided collaborative discussion is a key context for helping individuals to engage in this critical thinking about data in interdisciplinary ways. This study contributes to new literacies research on the changing nature of literacy in today’s social context of the Internet. It sheds new light on changing roles of educators in new literacies classrooms and on how educators can design instruction that helps learners move through the developmental trajectory of data literacies. Additional research, guided by the results of this study will lead to a deeper understanding of how individuals’ data literacies develop over time and what appears to prompt these changes.