Visualization Literacy at Elementary School

TLDR

The study aims to enhance elementary students’ visualization literacy by developing and evaluating C’est La Vis, an interactive teaching platform for pictographs and bar charts. The authors analyze K‑4 educational materials and teacher surveys, then design and prototype C’est La Vis, an online platform that delivers interactive pictograph and bar chart lessons. Initial observations suggest that integrating pedagogical strategies with interactive visualization, as implemented in C’est La Vis, can improve students’ understanding of pictographs and bar charts.

Abstract

This work advances our understanding of children's visualization literacy, and aims to improve it through a novel approach for teaching visualization at elementary school. We first contribute an analysis of data graphics and activities employed in grade K to 4 educational materials, and the results of a survey conducted with 16 elementary school teachers. We find that visualization education could benefit from integrating pedagogical strategies for teaching abstract concepts with established interactive visualization techniques. Building on these insights, we develop and study design principles for novel interactive teaching material aimed at increasing children's visualization literacy. We specifically contribute C'est La Vis, an online platform for teachers and students to respectively teach and learn about pictographs and bar charts, and report on our initial observations of its use in grades K and 2.