Abstract
The goal of the Databases for Many Majors project is to engage a broad audience in understanding fundamental database concepts using visualizations with color and visual cues to present these topics to students across many disciplines. There are three visualizations: introducing relational databases, querying, and design. A unique feature of these learning tools is the ability for instructors in diverse disciplines to customize the content of the visualization’s example data, supporting text, and formative assessment questions to promote relevance to their students. This paper presents a study on the impact of the customized introduction to relational databases visualization on both conceptual learning and attitudes towards databases. The assessment was performed in three different courses across two universities. The evaluation shows that learning outcomes are met with any visualization, which appears to be counter to expectations. However, students using a visualization customized to the course context had more positive attitudes and beliefs towards the usefulness of databases than the control group.
Highlights
The ubiquity of databases extends to all sectors of society and academia
The assessment was performed in three different courses across two universities: Computational Molecular Biology (CMB), Database Fluency (DBF) and Environmental Science (ENV)
The learning outcomes are consistent with the checkpoint questions for IntroDB (Dietrich and Goelman, 2017) in which students are asked similar questions over the spreadsheet and its corresponding relational design that are introduced within the visualization itself
Summary
The ubiquity of databases extends to all sectors of society and academia. Data analysts are in high demand. Subsequent funding enhanced the existing visualizations with a self-assessment framework, added a new visualization on how to design a relational database, and emphasized the customizations of the Introducing Databases in Context visualizations for various STEM disciplines. Another facet of this latter phase of the project included an examination of the accessibility of the visualizations (Bingham et al, 2018), resulting in a revised framework for the visualizations that satisfies the AA performance level of the Web Contrast Accessibilty Guidelines (W3C, 2008) and included a visual clue in addition to color to focus the user’s attention
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a callDisclaimer: All third-party content on this website/platform is and will remain the property of their respective owners and is provided on "as is" basis without any warranties, express or implied. Use of third-party content does not indicate any affiliation, sponsorship with or endorsement by them. Any references to third-party content is to identify the corresponding services and shall be considered fair use under The CopyrightLaw.
