Framing the Foundations of Data Science Learning with Young Children

Challenge

Preschool children increasingly encounter information that can be organized, represented, and used to answer questions. Yet little is known about how young children develop foundational data science knowledge or how this learning connects to early mathematics. Educators also lack clear guidance for supporting data-focused inquiry in developmentally appropriate ways.

In our Framing the Foundations of Data Science Learning with Young Children project, EDC is working with Head Start programs to design and validate a research-based understanding of how data science reasoning develops in early childhood. The project will create a Preschool Data Science Learning Trajectory to guide curriculum, professional learning, assessment, and policy, while strengthening the foundation for early STEM learning.

Key Activities

The project is carrying out the following activities:

• Examine how children use counting, sorting, classifying, comparing, and measurement to participate in data science practices, including questioning, collecting, representing, interpreting, and reasoning.
• Conduct cognitive interviews and classroom teaching experiments with preschool children in six multi-age Head Start classrooms to investigate how they develop foundational data knowledge.
• Develop, test, and refine a learning trajectory that describes young children’s progression from simple interactions with data to increasingly sophisticated reasoning.
• Analyze mixed-methods evidence to identify conditions and instructional supports that help young children use data to answer questions in early childhood classrooms.

Impact

• Develop and validate a Preschool Data Science Learning Trajectory that maps early data science reasoning and mathematical thinking for the field.
• Provide educators and researchers with an empirically grounded framework to inform curriculum, professional learning, assessment, and policy for early data science.