Survey data in teaching Exchange for Learning Project (JISC X4L)

The SDiT project aimed to consider how repurposing existing data resources housed at the UKDA for teaching and learning might increase their use, while recognising that there is considerable scope for increasing use of specially tailored teaching datasets and associated online learning materials within the FE sector. Simplifying and re-purposing complex data, for example, the larger government survey datasets held by the UKDA, is one way of opening up their accessibility. In attempting to meet the Programme’s key challenge of elucidating strategies that might encourage sustainability and widespread adoption of e-learning materials, the project was primarily concerned with learning activities, outcomes and models. Thus pedagogical outcomes were very much at the heart of the project. In this respect, a longer-term aim of the SDIT project was to find ways of helping teachers and learners work towards improving the data literacy of GCE ‘A’ level and university students to: • enable a better understanding of the use of social science data as applied to real life problems • enhance skills in manipulating numerical data - textbooks, newspapers, reports and databases • conceptualise the characteristics of quantitative data so that they can be used to support substantive arguments • increase the ability and confidence of students in producing and communicating data • become critical consumers of these data. The initial aims of the project were: first to develop, pilot and evaluate a set of survey data-based resources for use in the teaching of social science courses at both HE and FE level; and second, to document the experiences, process and outcomes of the project itself.