Real data, real world, real stories
Article dated: 9 March 2010
The ESDS International annual conference 2009, reported in the last newsletter, was entitled 'Real data, real world'. Building on that theme, ESDS International and the Census Dissemination Unit have been seeking stories from academics and students about the use of their socio-economic data in learning and teaching.
Concern about low levels of data and statistical skills among UK social science students has led to a desire to improve teaching in this area, using real world datasets essential for cutting edge research. The ESRC strategic advisor for teaching of quantitative methods to undergraduate students, John Macinnes, was commissioned in 2009 to look into the current state of affairs and make recommendations to the Council for future initiatives.
Recognising the role of social science data services in contributing to this agenda, and mindful of the increasing need to demonstrate impact (through qualitative as well as quantitative measures), the learning and teaching team at Mimas undertook a project in the summer of 2009 to produce evidence through case studies of how teachers use real world data resources, and of the impact on student learning.
The project – entitled ’Learning and Teaching with and about Data: Telling Stories’ - used a case study approach interviewing groups of teachers at several universities. Preliminary results were presented at a poster session at the Educause Learning Initiative conference (ELI2010), which attracted considerable interest in the approach taken. The aim was to capture, through technology audiovisual recordings, key themes that can be shared with the teaching community about the benefits of teaching with real world data. Multimedia digital stories are in preparation for show-casing at forthcoming events and conferences.
The main findings from this activity were that although real world data from ESDS and Census Programme are being used in UK social sciences HE teaching programmes, more sharing of practice was needed. The skills developed by the students were perceived as offering employability. The next challenge is to explore how the academic data community can share lessons learned and resources developed. Building on the success of this project, ESDS and the Census Dissemination Unit will continue to collect user stories as an ongoing activity.
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