How do people reason with data to make sense of the world? What implications might everyday practices hold for data literacy education? We leverage the unique context of the COVID-19 pandemic to shed light on these questions. COVID-19 has engendered a complex, multimodal ecology of information resources, with which people engage in high-stakes…

While the use of inferential statistics is a nearly universal practice in the social sciences, there are instances where its application is unnecessary and potentially misleading. This is true for a portion of research using administrative data in educational research in the United States. Surveying all research articles using administrative data…

Data is critical, but data has not always lead to success. If data is not communicated clearly, the results can be disastrous. Design lets us communicate data so it can be understood. Dr. Rankin believes that "when we're fluent in visualizing our ideas, we can communicate them across global boundaries, across spoken language barriers, and…

In this study, we used a paper-pencil questionnaire to investigate whether teachers, administrators, and parents differed in their preferences and accuracy when interpreting visual data displays for decision making. For the data analysis, we used nonparametric tests due to violations of distributional assumptions for using parametric tests. We…

In this book, best-selling author Susan M. Brookhart helps teachers and administrators understand the critical elements and nuances of assessment data and how that information can best be used to inform improvement efforts in the school or district. Readers will learn: (1) What different kinds of data can--and cannot--tell us about student…

This tool and its supporting resources are intended to help education leaders understand and assess equitable access data to support a root-cause analysis and, ultimately, draft a State Plan to Ensure Equitable Access to Excellent Educators. The activities in this tool introduce metrics, address staff capacity for analyzing equitable access data,…

Increasing demands for accountability from both the public and the government have resulted in increasing pressure for higher education professionals to use data to support their choices. There is significant speculation that professionals at all levels of education lack the knowledge to implement data-driven decision making. However, empirical…

Education data are growing in quantity, quality, and value. When appropriately used to guide action, data can be a powerful tool for improving school operations, teaching, and learning. Education stakeholders who possess the knowledge, skills, and abilities to appropriately access, analyze, and interpret data will be able to use data to take…

The national Study of Education Data Systems and Decision Making documented the availability and features of education data systems and the prevalence and nature of data-informed decision making in districts and schools. That study, like past research, found that teachers' likelihood of using data in decision making is affected by how confident…

This document presents an interactive visual guide that explains what data are, how they help, and what people can do with them. It also offers ways to enact statewide policies that support effective data use.

Data literacy is recognized as a critically important skill in today's society, but thinking with and about data is often ignored in K-12 curricula. The Thinking With Data (TWD) project advocates that data literacy is a skill that should be addressed in an interdisciplinary manner. This article provides an overview of the TWD curriculum for middle…

The purpose of this study was to determine how teacher perceptions of data and use of data-driven instruction affect student performance in English language arts (ELA). This study investigated teachers' perceptions of using data in the classroom and what supports they need to do so. The goal of the research was to increase the level of knowledge…

One of the central lessons from research on data use in schools and school districts is that assessments, student tests, and other forms of data are only as good as how they are used. But what influences how they are used? This relatively straightforward question turns out to be fairly complex to answer. Data use implicates a number of processes,…

Data can serve as a powerful tool to ensure equity for students: if educators examine data through the lens of social justice, they will reveal success stories and wounds. At the author's former school, Nipher Middle School in Saint Louis, Missouri, the wounds of previous data-driven decisions were real. Using a social justice lens to examine…

America brims with education data and these days it seems everyone in education claims to be guided by data. In this book, leaders and scholars map the landscape of data providers and users and explores why what is supplied by the former but frequently fails to meet the needs of the latter. It documents the barriers to collecting good information,…