Educational data literacy is the ability to collect, organize, interpret, and use data both qualitative and quantitative to:
- plan instructional programs,
- provide student performance feedback to student, teachers and administrators
- understand the impact of instructional programs, and
- evaluate the impact or programs, resources and conditions on student performance.
and
Data literacy involves using multiple sources of data, understanding various assessments and the assessment's value and limitations, and understanding the types of resulting scores. Ongoing professional development for teachers and administrators is necessary to keep educational staff up to date on assessments and data use.
It is important to understand the context in which data is collected. For example an assessment might be viewed as valid and reliable in a particular school that follows the intended curriculum that is represented in the assessment. However, if another school using the same assessment is not following the curriculum then the assessment is not content valid and will result in unreliable scores.
In all honesty, I have told clients that no data is better than data that is invalid and unreliable.