Data literacy is the ability to read, understand, create and communicate data as information. It can involve gathering, collating and analysing information, in order to understand and predict more accurately what will happen in certain situations.
This is an increasingly important skill, desired by many employers.
Data can be captured manually, but using digital tools enables us to capture more data, more efficiently.
Conducting surveys is one way of capturing data. Online survey forms enable us to capture larger and more useful volumes of data to analyse.
But data captured is only as good as the questions asked.
Learners will need to know what questions to ask, and how to ask them.
Some top tips for survey questions include:
- Avoid leading questions that suggest the answers in their wording, and influence responses.
- Provide a multiple-choice answer option for everyone, even if that answer is “neutral”, or “I don’t know”. Don’t force people to give answers when there are no options that apply to them.
- Put answer options in a random order, just in case people are inclined to go for the first option on the list.
- And lastly, have just one subject per question. If you ask people to make judgements on more than one thing at once, they’ll answer based on the subject they feel most strongly about.
Once a form has been created, consider how best to distribute the survey to reach the right number and group of people.
Email lists or a targeted social media audience are good ways of sharing online surveys to reach a wider and more relevant audience.
Once gathered, data can be collated on a spreadsheet. Many online forms will automatically input survey results into a spreadsheet, saving time in class.
Whether the information has been collected by an online survey or by another method, digital tools make it easier to represent and analyse data too.
Help learners to create a frequency table that shows how often a value appears in their data.
Show them how easy it is to calculate sum and average quickly using simple formulas.
Spreadsheet filters can also be used to identify trends across data sets.
When it comes to data, the right digital tools, used in the right way can be very effective when collecting and analysing data, saving time and making things more efficient.
In this short film for teachers Rhys ap William talks about the importance of data literacy, which is the ability to read, understand, create and communicate data as information.
Teacher notes
Digital tools can be very useful when capturing data. Tools such as online questionnaire forms allow us to capture information more quickly and from more people than asking questions face-to-face.
However, the accuracy of the data is dependent on the answers given and these are only as good as the questions asked.
Multiple choice questions are a good idea but students should avoid any leading questions and only tackle one subject per question to avoid any confusion in the answers. Answers for multiple choice questions should be in a random order so that the same box is not habitually ticked.
Students need to consider how best to distribute the questionnaire to their target audience. Emails and closed social media groups work well and are direct. Some questionnaire software automatically enters the information into a spreadsheet which is helpful and saves time.
Using frequency tables and filters in spreadsheets can help identify trends within the data.
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