This study aims to demonstrate how interactions between a Visual Analytics (VA) application and students shape an interactive and multimodal reading practice. VA is a technology offering support with analysing vast amounts of data through visualisations. Such information-rich interactive interfaces provide possibilities for students to gain insights, find correlations, and draw conclusions, but they also generate complexities concerning how to ‘read’ multimodal information on a screen. Inspired by Design-Based Research, interventions were designed and conducted in five social science secondary classrooms. The interactions between the VA application Statistics eXplorer and the students were video captured. A socio-material semiotic approach guides the analyses of how interactions between all actors (the interactive visualisations, the written text, the teachers, students, etc.) produce a reading network. The results show a reading characterised by being performative, collaborative, and dynamic. A combination of visuals and text supports the reading. However, visuals such as colour, highlighting and movement dominantly attract students’ attention, while written text often becomes subordinate and sometimes even ‘invisible’. Hence, this paper argues that it is vital for teachers to didactically support students’ visual reading skills.

This compilation thesis explores how the double aspect of visual literacy is enacted in secondary schools’ social science classrooms when interactive data visualizations are employed. The aim is to map what characterizes ‘reading’ interactive data visualizations and ‘writing’ knowledge visualizations, as well as implications for a didactic design supporting students’ visual literacy. The interactive visualization introduced by this thesis is the visual analytics application Statistics eXplorer, which offers support in analyzing vast amounts of data. Such information-rich interfaces provide possibilities for students to find correlations and draw conclusions, but they also generate complexities regarding interactive and multimodal texts and require modes other than the written when insights are to be demonstrated. The thesis is positioned under the umbrella of actor–network theory, thereby a socio-material perspective guides the study of interactions between actors (students, teachers, lesson plans, visualizations, written texts, etc.) Applying design-based research, an intervention is designed and conducted in seven social science classrooms comprised of four teachers and 152 students. The empirical material consists of zoomed-in webcam recordings capturing the students’ faces, voices, and gestures as well as the activities on the screens. It also includes wide-angle captures, field notes, and one focus group. Material discursive analysis guides the analytical work. The findings reveal a reading characterized as intense, performative, collaborative, and dynamic. The reading process is distinguished by searches for a starting point, a production of reading direction, and a continuously changing reading surface. The writing of knowledge visualizations is characterized by exploring, gathering, and inserting visuals as carriers of information. Furthermore, by identifying critical issues in the classrooms a didactic design framework is constructed, which demonstrates how teachers can support the development of students’ visual literacy. 

I denna avhandling undersöks visuell litteracitet i grundskolan när interaktiva datavisualiseringar används. Studien genomförs tillsammans med lärare och elever i årskurs 7, 8 och 9 under samhällsorienterade lektioner. Syftet är att kartlägga vad som kännetecknar att "läsa" interaktiva datavisualiseringar, att "skriva" kunskapsvisualiseringar och implikationer för en didaktisk design som stödjer elevernas visuella litteracitet. 

I avhandlingen används ett verktyg för visuell analys som hanterar stora datamängder. Sådana informationsrika gränssnitt gör det lättare att upptäcka samband och dra slutsatser, men denna typ av interaktiva och multimodala texter är också komplexa och kräver därför andra sätt än linjär text när kunskaper ska presenteras. 

Teoretiskt används ett socio-materiellt perspektiv för att studera interaktioner mellan aktörer (ex. elever, lärare, lektionsplaneringar, visualiseringar, skrivna texter). Studiens genomförs med utgångspunkt i designbaserad forskning. En intervention utvecklas och genomförs av fyra lärare och deras elever i sju olika samhällsorienterande klassrum. Det empiriska materialet består huvudsakligen av inspelningar av vad som sker på skärmen, vad som sker framför den, dvs av elevernas ansikten, röster och gester. Vanliga videoinspelningar från klassrummen, fältanteckningar och en fokusgrupp med lärare ingår också. Resultaten visar att denna typ av läsprocess är intensiv, performativ, dynamisk och präglas av samarbete. Processen att skriva kunskapsvisualiseringar kännetecknas av tre generella mönster: utforskande, samlande och att infoga/arrangera text och visualiseringar. Vidare, genom att identifiera kritiska aspekter som uppstår i klassrummen konstrueras ett ramverk för didaktiskt design angående utformning av undervisning som stödjer utvecklandet av elevernas visuella litteracitet.

In this study, a visual analytics application is put into practice in Swedish secondary school social science classrooms. The application offers support to analyse vast amounts of data through interactive data visualizations. Previous studies have demonstrated that the visual interactive interface challenges the traditional practice in school, where students usually demonstrate their knowledge by means of written texts. Thus, this study examines what happens if students work with more malleable, adaptable, or fluid modes when attempting to express their conclusions from work with interactive data visualizations. It aims to detect patterns in how knowledge visualizations are produced and arranged multimodally. Inspired by design-based research, the study conducted two classroom interventions followed by video captures. It employed a socio-material semiotic approach, which enables the study of interactions between both social and material actors. Three patterns emerged when students’ insights were translated into knowledge visualizations – exploring, gathering, and inserting. It became obvious how different actors taking part of such a digital multimodal writing activity affect and change every actor/everyone/everything, which in turn transfers, relocalizes, reformulates, and re-presents the communicated message. Knowing how knowledge visualizations are produced might strengthen students’ visual abilities when transforming insights multimodally.

This paper investigates the potential aspects of visual literacy that might appear when visual analytics and students interact in social science secondary classrooms. Interacting with visual technology likely demands new forms of literacy as various dimensions of complexity emerge in such learning activities where reading imposes order and relevance on what is displayed. However, only a few studies have evaluated how these visual processes emerge. Applying a socio-material semiotic approach, this paper examines the interactions between teachers, students and a visual analytics application, clarifying what strengthens or weakens the socio-material relations at work in emerging visual literacy. Methodologically, a design-based research approach is chosen. Notably, it is the early stages of the designed-based research cycle that are applied. Interventions were designed and conducted in five classes in three secondary schools in Sweden (97 students). The visual analytics application introduced was Statistics eXplorer. For each class, two to three lessons were video recorded to capture how the students interacted with the application. The socio-material analyses show that the interactions between the visual analytics and the students were both strengthened and weakened by different social as well as material forces. The actions were directed by visual properties such as movement, highlighting, and color, properties that often resulted in quick vision or locked vision. This paper argues that there needs to be a close didactic alignment and deeper knowledge of how visual interfaces attract students’ attention and how students’ visual literacy emerges in that relationship.

Hur kan en framtida digital utbildningspraktik främja elevers utveckling av kunskaper, förmågor och bildning i Hans Roslings anda? Elevers möjligheter att bidra till samhälleliga utmaningar som klimatförändringar, fattigdomsbekämpning och förbättrade levnadsvillkor behöver stärkas. I VISE-projektet arbetar lärare och forskare gemensamt för att skapa insikter i hur interaktiva datavisualiseringar kan bistå elever att analysera viktig fakta, skapa förståelse om vår värld och visuellt presentera dessa kunskaper.

The study explores students production of interactive visualized stories with visual analytics (VA). The aim is to understand emerging interactions in classrooms of grades 7-9 students when visual storytelling methods are playing a part in producing social science content. The dual aspects of visual literacy, information retrievement paired with the creation of interactive visualized stories, are crucial. Video captures of students working in groups and of what happens on their screens are conducted. The results show that students can handle the technical aspects of a VA application, but interpretation of visualized statistics is challenging. The study suggests that VA has potential to strengthen students ability to handle huge amounts of data and increase the possibilities for young people to take part in society.

This paper aims to explore how visual literacy emerges when visual analytics and students enact in social science secondary classrooms. Interacting with visual technology likely demands new forms of literacy as various dimensions of complexity emerge in such learning activities, where reading become a way to impose order and relevance on what is displayed. However, there is a lack of research how these visual processes emerge. By applying a socio-material semiotic approach, the interactions between teachers, students and a visual analytics application are followed. The paper clarifies what might strengthen or weaken the socio-material relations at work in emerging visual literacy. This design-based study was conducted in five classes in three secondary schools in Sweden, with 97 students. The visual analytics application introduced was Statistics eXplorer. Each class were followed two to three lessons by a video recording program that captured both the students and the actions at the computer screen. The socio-material analyses show that the enactments between the visual analytics and the students were both strengthened and weakened by different social as well as material forces. The actions were directed by visual properties as movement, highlighting and color. Connecting to the students these often produced a quick vision or a "locked" vision. The paper argues for close didactic alignment and deeper knowledge of how the visual interface attracts human (students’) attention and how students’ visual literacy ablilites may emerge in that relation.

In a world of massively mediated information and communication, students must learn to handle rapidly growing information volumes inside and outside school. Pedagogy attuned to processing this growing production and communication of information is needed. However, ordinary educational models often fail to support students, trialing neither efficient tools such as visual analytics (VA) nor educational improvements via, for example, knowledge visualization (KV). This paper accordingly explores the facilitation and realization of teachers’ development of innovative didactic designs, that is, thoroughly conceived lesson plans in which VA and KV are combined in learning activities in school settings. The aim is to clarify vital components emerging in innovative didactic designs intended to support students’ visual literacy, knowledge construction and visualize knowledge. These components are central to better understanding future outcomes in classrooms where visual learning tools are applied. This design-based research emerged from a ‘teacher researcher team’ comprising 15 teachers and four researchers, VA, theory, etc. Actor network theory, applied in analyzing significant issues and developments, revealed that teachers were aware not only to concentrate learning how to use VA but also considering how students can demonstrate growing knowledge – a more challenging tasks than simply introducing VA for students and teachers.