Choice of data visualization tool: FRED or spreadsheets?

Abstract

We study the impact that the choice of data visualization tool has on student ability to create a graph and interpret the information contained in it. We use a systematic random assignment approach and control for student demographic and academic characteristics. We compare the use of spreadsheets to the use of FRED (Federal Reserve Economic Data) among 471 undergraduate students of statistics for business and economics. We find that although there is no statistical difference between groups in the number of started assignments, the number of completed FRED assignments is significantly larger than the number of completed Google Sheets assignments. With that caveat, we find no association between the choice of data visualization tool and the proportion of correctly built graphs, average frustration, and perceived difficulty reported by students when building the graph. We document lower confidence in the task among female students and students who used FRED.