EDC to Lead Study of Young Children's Data Science Learning

EDC has received a new award from the National Science Foundation that will expand our portfolio of PreK–16 data science work. Since 2013, we have promoted data literacy and fluency, helped teachers bring data science into classrooms, and prepared youth for careers in data science.

Over the next two years, EDC principal investigator (PI) Dr. Ashley Lewis Presser and co-PI Dr. Jessica Mercer Young will conduct the study “Framing the Foundations of Data Science Learning with Young Children” in six Head Start multi-age classrooms. The research builds on their decades of innovative R&D to improve early math learning, including previous preschool data science R&D, and addresses a key research gap.

“We are thrilled to be able to push the field forward by carrying out this study,” said Dr. Lewis Presser, EDC Senior Research Scientist. “In our previous work, we found that data science learning can be a powerful strategy to promote young children’s math learning. But  there is little evidence on how preschoolers gain key data knowledge and how their teachers can support their learning.”

“It is really exciting to be collaborating with our Head Start partners again and we look forward to sharing the results of this research with early childhood educators and leaders nationwide,” added Dr. Young, EDC Principal Research Scientist. “Our findings have the potential to inform future curriculum development, professional learning, assessment design, and education policy.”

Through cognitive interviews, classroom teaching experiments, and mixed-methods analysis, Drs. Lewis Presser and Young will examine how and under what conditions young students learn to:

• Ask questions that can be answered with data
• Collect and organize information
• Create different types of visual data representations
• Use evidence to answer questions

From this research, they will develop and validate a new Preschool Data Science Learning Trajectory for the field that will align with their freely available resources for teachers (e.g., Preschool Data Toolbox, Lesson Plans).  This road map of early learners’ data science reasoning and mathematical thinking will help guide and improve all children’s early STEM learning.

Explore Drs. Lewis Presser’s and Young’s work in two recent articles: “Data Collection and Analysis for Preschoolers” in Early Childhood Research Quarterly and “Preschool and Data Science” in Education Sciences.

We invite you to learn more about EDC’s Early Childhood Development & Learning, STEM Education & Workforce Development, and Research & Evaluation initiatives.