Data Visualization Literacy Skills of Information Science Students

Data visualization literacy is “the ability and skill to read and interpret visually represented data in and to extract information from data visualizations” and is an emerging literacy type. Even though support exists for data literacy and data visualization use within the academic professions, limited research assessing data visualization literacy skills has been published. This study surveys participants recruited from the 56 institutions with ALA-accredited information programs using Visualization Literacy Assessment Tool (VLAT) content directly from the original test instrument. The results of this study indicate that information science students may possess data visualization literacy skills but have gaps in relation to specific types of data visualizations.