Date of Award

2024

Document Type

Master Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Arts

Department

Media Communications Department

First Advisor

Dr Trevor Hogan

Second Advisor

Dr Joey Campbell

Abstract

In today’s world we interact with data daily, whether it is on our phones, smart watches, websites, newspapers, or paper bills. Some have even proclaimed, ‘Data as the new gold.’ As data is an ever growing and important part of adult lives, this study was motivated to initiate the research presented here by questioning how we can expose children to data, in a way that will excite their early education, With this in mind, the aim of this research is to explore how we can make ‘learning through data’ a more interactive, engaging and positive activity by using modalities beyond the typical visualizations and towards more unique approaches such as physicalizations and augmented reality. This research is based on the belief that incorporating teaching approaches, in the form of either physical or virtual data exercises, will help to improve children's overall learning experience. To this end, this thesis describes four studies that lend to the aim of developing a prototype solution for primary schools to incorporate into the curriculum for data learning activities. The first focuses on teachers with a questionnaire and follow-up interviews related to the use of materials in the classroom. Following this, the report describes the development and facilitation of two data-based workshops in a classroom with 32 students, one focusing on Data Physicalization and the other on Augmented Reality. Study three illustrates the formulation of a new framework for data learning activities that subsequently informs the creation of a Data Physicalization toolkit for school classrooms that was tested in a research-through-design process in the fourth and final study. The contributions of this thesis include a review of current materials used for practical exercises in primary school classrooms and new knowledge on how data activities through the use of Data Physicalization differ from data activities using Augmented Reality. Other contributions include the development of a new framework for data learning activities and the design of a card-based toolkit that incorporates this new theoretical framework into a practical application for use in a primary school classroom setting. This thesis concludes that data can be made a more enjoyable and accessible topic for primary school students across a range of subjects by incorporating more hands-on, interactive activities than is currently available in the curricula.

Access Level

info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess

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