Introducing Data Wrangling using Graphical Subgoals - Findings from an e-Learning Study

Students across disciplines are increasingly wrangling their data programmatically. Previous research indicates that graphical, instructor-provided subgoals could help novices solve data wrangling tasks, and that graphical thumbnails could make the syntax documentation more usable. Using a 2x2 design, we trialled different versions of a web application for teaching data wrangling, which contains both programmatic and non-programmatic exercises. Half of all participants received graphical subgoals to visualise data wrangling solutions instead of just textual subgoals, and half received graphical thumbnails. Performance and time on task are reported, but did not result in any significant effect. We discuss possible reasons why.