Data Literacy Competencies for Undergraduate Students 2.0
Cross-institutional research was conducted by librarians from Rollins College and University of South Florida to affirm the data-related competencies that are most critical for undergraduate students. Our findings indicated a need for refining the scaffolding to better reflect differences across disciplines, as shown in the table below. These scaffolded data literacy competencies may be used as a guide to help faculty and librarians integrate data-related skills into undergraduate courses in a variety of disciplines (Burress, Mann, Montgomery, & Walton, 2021).
Burress, T., Mann, E.Z., Montgomery, S., & Walton, R. (2021). Data Literacy in Undergraduate Education: Faculty Perspectives and Pedagogical Approaches. In J. Bauder (Ed.), Teaching Critical Thinking with Numbers: Data Literacy and the Framework for Information Literacy for Higher Education (pp. 1-22). Chicago: Association of College & Research Libraries.
Data Literacy Competencies for Undergraduate and Graduate Students
A 2018-2019 Faculty Learning Community identified key data-related competencies that are critical for college students as shown in the chart below. These competencies may be used as a guide to help faculty across disciplines integrate data-related skills into their courses (Burress, Mann, and Neville, 2020). Because data analysis is a core competency often covered in courses, we focused on the following complementary areas:
* Our Faculty Learning Community found that activities allowing students to create original datasets that are meaningful to them personally are an effective way to help them understand how data is created, thereby improving their ability to interpret and critically evaluate external datasets and data visualizations.
Burress, T., Mann, E., & Neville, T. (2020). Exploring data literacy via a librarian-faculty learning community: A case study. Journal of Academic Librarianship, 46(1), 102076. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.acalib.2019.102076
Data Literacy in the USF General Education Curriculum
Information and data literacy are central tenets of USF Enhanced General Education for undergraduate students (USF, 2018).
Information + Data Literacy
1. Use research tools and indicators of authority to determine the credibility of sources, while identifying any legal and ethical restrictions placed on the use of information.
2. Critically interpret quantitative evidence (such as graphs, tables, charts) in order to identify false claims, incorrect use of evidence, or contradictory statements.
3. Contribute to scholarly conversations using discipline-appropriate communication in different modalities, such as local online communities, guided discussions, undergraduate research journals, and conference presentations/poster sessions.
4. Revise submitted coursework by integrating new sources of information and determining relevance of existing sources.
5. Critically compare and contrast opposing claims regarding the same fact or hypothesis, when the various sides are credible according to discipline-specific indicators of authority.
6. Summarize the key changes in scholarly perspective over time on a particular topic within a specific discipline.
7. Formulate questions for research based on information gaps or on reexamination of existing, possibly conflicting, data, then use the questions as a guide to organize information in meaningful ways.