Mind the gap! Exploring teachers professional learning needs to cultivate critical data literacies

Abstract

Critical Data Literacy as approach to the emergent problem of datafication requires teachers' skills and awareness. However, this professional learning need appears to be overlooked. Our study aims at exploring teachers’ discourses in an attempt to map out professional practices and identify learning needs, therefore the metaphor of “Mind the Gap” was used. We adopted a mixed-methods, constructionist inquiry along three phases (106, 39 and 49 participants respectively) embedded into a transnational project on critical digital literacies (CDL) involving Finland, Italy, Spain, and the UK. The focus was placed on re-defining critical data literacy components and dimensions and identifying gaps in relation to teachers’ professional learning needs. The results indicate that data literacy was not as present as other dimensions across the teachers’ accounts about the most immediate and relevant “data” problems. This has clear implications regarding the need to face teachers' professional development to embrace critical data practices within a digital context that evolves.

Keywords

• Teachers' professional knowledge
• Critical digital literacy
• Critical Data Literacy
• Constructionist Research