Authentic inquiry with open data in elementary school

Open data offers the potential to enhance citizen participation, transparency,
and accountability in society. However, a lack of competencies that enable citizens to
engage in open data ecosystems remains a barrier. Although the development of
authentic data inquiry has been identified as a promising outcome of open data learning
designs in school, its relationship to open data competencies is not yet clearly defined.
This study investigates how young pupils develop open data competencies through
authentic open data inquiry. Two design-based research cycles and four interventions
were conducted in Danish schools with 78 students (14-16 years) and four teachers.
Participants engaged with The Open Data Newsroom, an open data learning design
that immerses students in a data journalism practice for solving an environmental
mystery. Following a thematic analysis approach, we examined qualitative data from
observations, surveys, and interviews with teachers and students to identify four
categories that encompass students’ practices for (1) Navigating open data: find and
assess relevant information and data to identify a problem; (2) Developing authentic
data analysis: analyse and interpret data in connection to real-world problems and local
contexts; (3) Building authentic data arguments and stories: explain a problem with
data from different sources and domains; and (4) Creating data representations: build
tools to support critical thinking, decision-making and communication. We discuss
these authentic open data inquiry practices as overlapping open data competencies
that contribute to fostering d