'Bettering Data': The Role of Everyday Language and Visualization in Critical Novice Data Work

International Forum of Educational Technology & Society. Available from: National Yunlin University of Science and Technology. No. 123, Section 3, Daxue Road, Douliu City, Yunlin County, Taiwan 64002. e-mail: [email protected]; Web site: https://www.j-ets.net/

Y

17

National Science Foundation (NSF)

1951818

Data Analysis; Visual Aids; Novices; Work Environment; Language Usage; Social Justice; Ethnography; Discourse Analysis; Statistics Education; Barriers; Police Community Relationship; Employee Attitudes; Computer Science Education; African Americans; Case Studies; Workshops; Racism; Law Enforcement; Workplace Learning; Nonverbal Communication

1176-3647
1436-4522

Informed by critical data literacy efforts to promote social justice, this paper uses qualitative methods and data collected during two years of workplace ethnography to characterize the notion of critical novice data work. Specifically, we analyze everyday language used by novice data workers at DataWorks, an organization that trains and employs historically excluded populations to work with community data sets. We also characterize challenges faced by these workers in both cleaning and being critical of data during a project focused on police-community relations. Finally, we highlight novel approaches to visualizing data the workers developed during this project, derived from data cleaning and everyday experience. Findings and discussion highlight the generative power of everyday language and visualization for critical novice data work, as well as challenges and opportunities to foster critical data literacy with novice data workers in the workplace.

As Provided

2023

EJ1366451