How Do Teachers Use Dashboards Enhanced with Data Storytelling Elements According to their Data Visualisation Literacy Skills?

Abstract

There is a proliferation of learning analytics (LA) dashboards aimed at supporting teachers. Yet, teachers still find it challenging to make sense of LA dashboards, thereby making informed decisions. Two main strategies to address this are emerging: i) upskilling teachers’ data literacy; ii) improving the explanatory design features of current dashboards (e.g., adding visual cues or text) to minimise the skills required by teachers to effectively use dashboards. While each approach has its own trade-offs, no previous work has explored the interplay between the dashboard design and such "data skills". In this paper, we explore how teachers with varying visualisation literacy (VL) skills use LA dashboards enhanced with (explanatory) data storytelling elements. We conducted a quasi-experimental study with 23 teachers of varied VL inspecting two versions of an authentic multichannel dashboard enhanced with data storytelling elements. We used an eye-tracking device while teachers inspected the students’ data captured from Zoom and Google Docs, followed by interviews. Results suggest that high VL teachers adopted complex exploratory strategies and were more sensitive to subtle inconsistencies in the design; while low VL teachers benefited the most from more explicit data storytelling guidance such as accompanying complex graphs with narrative and semantic colour encoding.