Abstract:

Youth education in Data Analytics might be key to giving a voice to future stakeholders. Offering Data Analytics education at high schools could foster a culture geared towards data insight and data quality, paving the path for analytics to become commonplace in society and prepare them to have a voice when they reach the workforce; Storytelling with Data (SwD) for disadvantaged public high school students in the Boston area provides an excellent opportunity to study its impact on the youth perception of the career, their self-confidence in this STEM subject, their acquired data literacy, and to prepare future stakeholders to advocate for excellence in data quality, equity, and diversity.

Boston Public Schools (BPS) is one of the most diverse school districts in the nation. Nearly one in every two students speaks a language other than English at home, and BPS students come from 139 different countries. One in five BPS students has a disability, and half are economically disadvantaged (Boston Public Schools, 2021). BPS has a history of underrepresented minorities who have been failed by the school system and have little chance of upward mobility [Wyner et al., 2007]. There are several reasons for this failure including systemic racism [Robison & Thompson, 2016; Nelson, 2014; Evans, 2020], poverty [Saporito & Sohoni, 2007], lack of courses to prep them for college [Toldson & Lewis, 2012], and lack of academic and family support for those who are disenfranchised [Mills & McGregor, 2016; D'Elia & Wishart, 2014].

Federal civil rights data demonstrate that African American and Latino high school students are being shortchanged in their access to high-level math and science courses that could prepare them for post-secondary education and careers in fields like data analytics [“The Data Science Diversity Gap,” 2017]. Data analytics is also a field that lacks diversity. According to Business-Higher Education Forum report, Investing in America’s Data Science and Analytics Talent: The Case for Action, “The lack of diversity in data science is not only an employer problem but also a national problem…The U.S. economy has much to gain by engaging more of its workers in high-demand occupations — and data science, along with computer services and engineering, represent fast-growth categories of higher-paying jobs” [Abdul-Alim, 2017].

Given the lack of diversity in Data Analytics (DA) careers, and the urge to instill a passion for DA in our students of color at BPHS, we run a 40-hour SwD Program. It introduced the DA career, basics on handling data, and best practices of data visualization with Tableau hands on. The main goals were to increase knowledge and skills in data literacy, data storytelling, and statistics; to increase awareness of and interest in Data Analytics as a career, as well as academic and data analytics-related self-confidence. Building community around Campus was also our aim.

Pre(PS) and Post(PoS) surveys revealed encouraging results: ‘I learn things quickly in statistics’:52%-PS x 72%-PoS; ‘Statistic is boring’:56%-PS x 38.8%-PoS; ‘Data visualization is more difficult for me than for many of my classmates’: 44%-PS x 22.2%-PoS; ’Data visualization is not one of my strengths’: 60%-PS x 38.8%-PoS; PoS responses: ‘I enjoyed what I did in the Storytelling w/ Data Program’ (61%); ‘The Storytelling w/ Data Program will be useful on my career plans’ (50%). We plan to offer annually SwD with College funds assessing the results for scale.

Keywords:

Data literacy, storytelling with data, minority high school students, empowerment through STEM education.