Citizens’ data‑ing with contemporary data in their daily life

Authors Lonneke Boels, Aline Boels, Rosa Alberto, Kees Hoogland
Published in ZDM – Mathematics Education
Publication date 2025
Research groups Wiskundig en Analytisch vermogen van Professionals
Type Article

Summary

Citizens regularly search the Web to make informed decisions on daily life questions, like online purchases, but how they reason with the results is unknown. This reasoning involves engaging with data in ways that require statistical literacy, which is crucial for navigating contemporary data. However, many adults struggle to critically evaluate and interpret such data and make data-informed decisions. Existing literature provides limited insight into how citizens engage with web-sourced information. We investigated: How do adults reason statistically with web-search results to answer daily life questions? In this case study, we observed and interviewed three vocationally educated adults searching for products or mortgages. Unlike data producers, consumers handle pre-existing, often ambiguous data with unclear populations and no single dataset. Participants encountered unstructured (web links) and structured data (prices). We analysed their reasoning and the process of preparing data, which is part of data-ing. Key data-ing actions included judging relevance and trustworthiness of the data and using proxy variables when relevant data were missing (e.g., price for product quality). Participants’ statistical reasoning was mainly informal. For example, they reasoned about association but did not calculate a measure of it, nor assess underlying distributions. This study theoretically contributes to understanding data-ing and why contemporary data may necessitate updating the investigative cycle. As current education focuses mainly on producers’ tasks, we advocate including consumers’ tasks by using authentic contexts (e.g., music, environment, deferred payment) to promote data exploration, informal statistical reasoning, and critical web-search skills—including selecting and filtering information, identifying bias, and evaluating sources.

On this publication contributed

  • Lonneke Boels
    Lonneke Boels
    • Interim lector
    • Research group: Wiskundig en Analytisch vermogen van Professionals
  • Rosa Alberto
    • Researcher
    • Research group: Wiskundig en Analytisch vermogen van Professionals
  • Kees Hoogland
    • Lector
    • Research group: Wiskundig en Analytisch vermogen van Professionals

Language Engels
Published in ZDM – Mathematics Education
Key words informal statistical reasoning, consumer task, producer task, internet search, vocational education, statistical literacy
Digital Object Identifier 10.1007/s11858-025-01665-4

Lonneke Boels

Lonneke Boels

Lonneke Boels

  • Interim lector
  • Research group: Wiskundig en Analytisch vermogen van Professionals