The Exploration and Practice of a Training Path for University Students' Data Literacy

Abstract

In the age of big data, data literacy has become an essential skill for university students. The effective management of data information is increasingly vital in both scientific research and social decision-making processes. One effective method to fostering data literacy among students is to offer a general education course of big data that is accessible to students from various disciplines. Over four years of teaching the Big Data General Course, we have developed teaching schemes, methods, and evaluation strategies to enhance students’ data literacy across the university. Leveraging our experiences at Xihua University, we collected and standardized pertinent student learning data, and organized and visualized the data for analysis. Furthermore, we implemented two types of evaluation methods: summative self-assessment and formative assessment. The results of our analysis and evaluation demonstrated a positive correlation with the intended learning outcomes. Our findings indicate that providing a general course on big data is an effective means of cultivating data literacy among university students. This conclusion provides valuable insights for enhancing general competencies among students in higher education.