The purpose of the study is to highlight perceptions about data literacy among employees at Luleå University professional services and institutions. The purpose is motivated on the report that the University Library in Luleå wrote in 2018, a report that shows a discrepancy between the national vision of open research data and the actual research data management at Luleå University of Technology. The university employees' perceptions about the issue can be seen as a current situation description at Luleå University of Technology, but also as a starting point for future discussions about educating data literacy at Luleå University of Technology. The theoretical foundat-ion of the study is social constructionist and is within the socio-cultural perspective formation in which Roger Säljö's interpretations of literature and learning are in focus. The study shows that there are perceptions that express the need for education in data literacy, but also that there are intra-institutional problems regarding get-ting time and space for the education and that there is a demand for a greater collaboration between libraries and institutions on the issue. This is a two years master’s thesis in Library and Information Science.

Globally, a wealth of educational data has been collected on learner performance in a bid to improve and monitor the quality of education. Unfortunately, the data seem to have had only limited influence on learning and teaching in classrooms. This thesis aimed to bridge this gap between the availability of learner performance data and their use in informing planning and action in schools. A design research approach was used to optimise the feedback system for the South African Monitoring system for Primary schools (SAMP). Design research aims to produce both an intervention to address a complex real-world challenge and to develop design guidelines to support other designers faced with similar challenges in their own context. In this research, the process of developing and improving the feedback system was also used to examine ways of facilitating the use of the feedback. Multiple cycles of design, implementation and evaluation of four different prototypes of the feedback system were conducted, employing evaluations from both experts (e.g. Dutch and South African academics, research and educational psychologists, instrument designers and teacher trainers) as well as school users (teachers, principals and HoDs). Mixed methods were employed throughout the study, with different sub-samples of school users sampled from the population of 22 schools (English, Afrikaans and Sepedi) in the Tshwane region participating in SAMP. The various research cycles incorporated interviews, observations, journals, questionnaires, the Delphi technique and expert evaluations to examine not only data-use, but also aspects such as problem-solving, planning, data-literacy and attitudes towards evidence-based practice in the schools. Data was analysed using Rasch Modelling, descriptive statistics and computer-aided qualitative data analysis. The study showed that an effective feedback system facilitates appropriate use through a gradual process of enlightenment, is flexible and responsive to user inputs, values collaboration and includes instrument, reporting and support components in its design. An optimum feedback system also positively influences school feedback and monitoring culture by providing opportunities for positive experiences with feedback and increasing data-literacy. This improves the chances of feedback being used for planning, decision-making and action in the schools. An effective feedback system must also offer a comprehensive package to accommodate different users, with various levels of data sophistication, functioning in diverse contexts. The research also showed that an effective feedback system mediates thinking about educational instruction and curriculum and can therefore be a potent change agent. Use of clear, simple, intuitive data presentation in the feedback system allows for experiential learning to increase user data-literacy. The design research approach employed in this study offers an appropriate and powerful approach to adapting, developing and optimising a feedback system. User involvement in design research ensures greater contextualisation and familiarity with the system, while engendering trust and a greater sense of ownership, all of which increase the receptiveness and responsiveness of users to feedback. Finally, the research also contributed design guidelines for other developers of feedback systems, an integrated conceptual framework for use of monitoring feedback and a functioning feedback system employed by 22 schools in the Tshwane region. / Thesis (PhD)--University of Pretoria, 2010. / Science, Mathematics and Technology Education / unrestricted

The digital revolution is challenging both individuals and organizations to be more comfortable using various digital technologies. Digital technologies enable and generate high amounts of data, but people are not very good at interpreting or making sense of it. This study aimed to explore the role of digital competencies and data literacy in digital transformations and identify the consequences the lack of digital competencies and data literacy can cause within digital transformation projects. The authors studied technology consultants' perspectives with experience in digital transformation projects using an exploratory qualitative research design building on the empirical data gathered from semi-structured interviews. The authors were able to identify that the technology consultants perceived digital competencies as crucial skills for individuals to possess in digital transformations. At the same time, data literacy was not considered a crucial skill in the context of digital transformations. Regarding the consequences of a digital skills gap, the technology consultants saw issues within the implementation of the project, delays, or indirect waste of resources like monetary assets.

This study applies the knowledge, skills, and abilities (KSA) framework for eScience professionals to data service positions in academic libraries. Understanding the KSAs needed to provide data services is of crucial concern. The current study looks at KSAs of data professionals working in the United States academic libraries. An exploratory sequential mixed method design was adopted to discover the KSAs. The study was divided into two phases, a qualitative content analysis of 260 job advertisements for data professionals for Phase 1, and distribution of a self-administered online survey to data professionals working in academic libraries research data services (RDS) for Phase 2. The discovery of the KSAs from the content analysis of 260 job ads and the survey results from 167 data professionals were analyzed separately, and then Spearman rank order correlation was conducted in order to triangulate the data and compare results. The results from the study provide evidence on what hiring managers seek through job advertisements in terms of KSAs and which KSAs data professionals find to be important for working in RDS. The Spearman rank order correlation found strong agreement between job advertisement KSAs and data professionals perceptions of the KSAs.

Die Arbeit mit Messunsicherheiten ist essentiell in Naturwissenschaften und Technik. Vor diesem Hintergrund befasst sich diese Arbeit in der ersten Forschungsfrage damit, wie die Inhalte eines validierten Sachstrukturmodells zum Thema Messunsicherheiten (Hellwig 2012) operationalisiert und gemessen werden können. Dazu wurden die Konzepte des Modells in Form von Kompetenzen beschrieben und zugehörige Multiple-Choice Testaufgaben formuliert. Anschließend wurden zufällig ausgewählte Testaufgaben einem Expertenrating unterzogen. Die Ergebnisse zeigen ein Fleiss Kappa, Congers Kappa und Lights Kappa von jeweils mindestens 0,86, was für eine sehr gute Passung der Testaufgaben zu den Kompetenzen spricht. Weiter wurden die Testaufgaben mit 1299 Studierenden erprobt und die 15 (bzw. 10) Testaufgaben zu jedem Konzept einzeln ausgewertet. Als Grundlage diente das eindimensionale dichotome Rasch-Modell. Zur Auswertung wurden u.a. Gütekriterien zur Modellkonformität, lokalen Unabhängigkeit und Subgruppeninvarianz betrachtet. Als Ergebnis wurden bei einer EAP-Reliabilität von 0,61 bis 0,81 zu jedem Konzept 7 - 12 Testaufgaben identifiziert, die zur Nutzung empfohlen werden können. Für einzelne Testaufgaben wurden außerdem Änderungsvorschläge herausgearbeitet. In einer zweiten Forschungsfrage wurde die Struktur der zu den Konzepten formulierten Testaufgaben mit einer konfirmatorischen Faktorenanalyse untersucht. Die Ergebnisse zeigen, dass die Konzepte innerhalb einer Dimension des Sachstrukturmodells als einzelne Faktoren aufgefasst werden können. In zwei Fällen können auch gemeinsame Faktoren für zwei der Konzepte einer Dimension empirisch und inhaltlich begründet werden. Insgesamt stellt diese Arbeit damit für den Bereich der Messunsicherheiten ein theoriegeleitetes, inhaltlich validiertes und empirisch geprüftes Testinstrument zur Verfügung, mit dem zielgerichtet und differenziert in großer Breite Kompetenzen im Umgang mit Messunsicherheiten von Lernenden erhoben werden können. / Working with measurement uncertainties is essential in science and engineering. On the basis of a validated model that structures the content in the field of measurement uncertainties (Hellwig 2012) this thesis looks in its first research question at how the concepts proposed by the model can be operationalized and measured. Therefore, the concepts given by the model are formulated by learning progressions and operationalized by multiple choice test items. A random sample of the items then was assessed by six experts in the field of teaching measurement uncertainties. The results show a Fleiss kappa, Congers kappa and Lights kappa of 0.86 or higher for the assignment of the items to the given learning progressions which indicates a very good matching. Furthermore, the items were evaluated in a survey with 1299 university students and each set of 15 (resp. 10) items per concept was analyzed by using the dichotomous one-dimensional Rasch model. Amoung others criteria concerning model conformity, local independence and subgroup invariance were tested. As a result, for each concept 7 to 12 items could be identified which suit the given criteria. The EAP-reliability came up from 0.61 to 0.81 (considering all items of the concepts). In a second research question, the empirical results were evaluated by a confirmatory factor analysis. The results show that the itemsets for the concepts of the model could be interpreted as individual factors. In two cases for two concepts (in one dimension proposed by the model) the assumption of one factor can also be empirically and content-related justified. Overall this thesis presents an empirically-validated assessment tool to probe students' understanding of measurement uncertainties according to the content structure model. The tool captures a broad spectrum in the field of measurement uncertainties in very detailed resolution and can therefore help to evaluate learning progressions and teaching instructions.