Promoting data literacy
Authors
Dr. med. Monique Lehky Hagen and Prof. Dr. Diego Kuonen
Initiative «Data Literacy – Switzerland»
The ‘Big Data’ teaching material created as part of NRP 75 is seeking to promote data literacy among young people and thus in society as a whole. The authors explain why this is important in their plea for a national data literacy campaign.
‘Enlightenment is man’s emergence from his self-imposed immaturity.’ This principle underlies the many and varied efforts over more than two centuries (including in education) to enable everyone to go through life actively ‘enlightened’ and be able to participate in public social life.
In the 21st century, when advancing digitalisation has made data even easier to generate and disseminate, being able to find your way through this sea of data in an ‘enlightened’ manner has become an essential skill. This requires data literacy, i.e. the ability to critically examine data collection, management, evaluation and use, all whilst taking ethics into account. This calls for technical skills, an ability to link ideas, and statistical and specialist knowledge, all of which must be acquired, maintained and deepened as part of a lifelong interprofessional learning process.
Data literacy on the curriculum
Initiating a vital cultural change like this, which shows us that our increasingly data-based knowledge is continually changing and needs to be interpreted based on the relevant context, requires a deliberate and consistent implementation of the basics and a progressive deepening of data literacy in education from kindergarten through to university level.
Education represents a key pillar in promoting individual and societal data literacy. Thanks to a combined commitment by politics and media, this should enable each of us to participate in an ‘enlightened’ way in all life situations, as well as in democratic social life.
Like reading and writing, data literacy is an essential foundation of our democratic participation.
Ongoing practice and application should be used to make data literacy an integral part of daily life. Deliberate, appropriate promotion of critical data literacy via education could help to prevent or defuse pointless social conflicts.
A data-literacy-based mindset would help ensure an understanding that there are in fact no absolutely irrevocable truths, but rather that our living conditions and concepts are subject to constant change, which we need to learn to deal with as reasonably as possible using constructive data skills in our increasingly networked world.
Data literacy is vital for all! Or as David Spiegelhalter (former president of the Royal Statistical Society) put it in 2020: ‘It is not only professionals that require data literacy – it is a basic requirement for informed citizens’.
Appeal for a national data literacy campaign
Our appeal for an urgent national data literacy campaign, launched in July 2020, is helping to introduce a lasting cultural change in how we handle data, in the form of a call to the political world. Our request covers areas such as incorporating data literacy teaching into education and training, with suitable programmes right from kindergarten level. A corresponding interpellation to the Federal Council was submitted to the Council of States on 29 September 2020. A further motion was adopted by the National Council on 11 May 2022 with nearly 75% voting ‘yes’. Unfortunately, the motion was then rejected by the Council of States for political reasons on 20 September 2022.
Big Data teaching materials for data-competent young people
The Big Data teaching materials developed by NRP 75 ‘Big Data’ and the Museum of Communication are a key, expedient piece of the jigsaw for ensuring data-competent school students at secondary levels I and II.
They represent the first step in our transition to a data-competent society. But there is much more to be done!
Data literacy: leave no one behind!
Which is why a deliberately implemented data literacy offensive is needed for the education system.