Essential data skills for learners
I recently wrote about new National Units relating to data skills. The units (entitled “Data Skills”) are available at SCQF Levels 3, 4 and 5, and are available now.
I’d like to encourage you to consider adding these units to your curriculum. Part of the motivation for producing them was the pandemic. During the last couple of years people have been bombarded with graphs and charts, and statistical jargon such as “linear” and “exponential”. These units seek to improve data literacy so that people understand what they see or hear.
The Level 3 unit covers the uses of data in daily life, percentages, very simple statistics, and basic graphs and charts. Level 4 extends that to include “data thinking”, ratios, misleading statistics and correlation. Level 5 explores the value of data, data bias, trends and outliers, and confounding variables. I don’t think it’s too grand to say that these are vital skills for 21st Century citizens.
We’re currently writing assessments for these units, which will be available soon. Please contact Megan if you want to know more.
