Data Visualization

Incorporating data visualization and infographics into TRU Open Learning will enhance the interpretation of information, improve understanding of complex concepts, and increase retention among students. The guidelines are as follows:

  1. Power of Visualization: Visual information is more effective than textual data because the human mind processes visual representation faster and retains it for a longer period.
  2. Strategically Incorporating Data Visualization Elements: Integrate infographics into educational content that aligns with the learning objectives of the curriculum and is visually appealing, concise, and readable.
  3. Right Balance of Text and Visuals: Maintaining a balance between texts and visuals is crucial to facilitate comprehension and ensure visual content complements the text information.
  4. Types of Visuals: Use different types of visuals, including images, charts, graphs, illustrations, animations, etc., to convey information effectively and engage the students.
  5. Provide Instructor-Provided Summary Infographics: Provide summary infographics to support asynchronous learning environments, helping students summarize, retain, and revise course content effectively.
  6. Promote Active Learning: Encourage students to be involved in creating infographics and data visualizations, helping them develop visual communication skills that will help them access the course material.

Visual communication is more effective than verbal communication because the human mind’s ability to perceive visual representation is faster than verbal or written information. The differentiation between data visualization and infographics is mentioned in this paper, where data visualization is a tool to create infographics and is just a part of a storytelling piece. On the other hand, infographics are used to communicate the entire message clearly and quickly. Two problem statements are proposed to identify students’ perceptions of moving toward digital learning. The first was to ascertain whether the use of infographics affected the students’ achievements in comparison to not using infographics in the curriculum. The second problem statement assessed students’ perception on the impact of infographics. The two problem statements were analysed using research methodologies with positive results. It is understood that the visualization of infographics increases the retention of learned content. People remember visual representations more accurately, quickly, and for a longer time. The second problem statement was evaluated with a response that a high percentage of students had positive perceptions regarding the use of infographics and it had a positive impact on their intellectual development. Overall, the media integration of infographics and data visualization in the TRU online curriculum will enhance student’s intellectual, life skills, and affective development.

This research aims to investigate students’ perceptions of integrating infographics for learning. The researchers mentioned that all subjects should include infographics with suitable data visualization. Integrating infographics has certain advantages, such as enhancing interpretation of information, concepts, and ideas; improving the ability to think about complex information; and enhancing retention abilities. Instructors are using infographics as a way of communication that helps learners’ collaboration, engagement, and conceptual understanding. For this, the research methodology of a five-point Likert Scale questionnaire was conducted with students to gather their responses on students’ perceptions about using infographics in education. The result showed nearly 82% of students support learning with infographics as an educational method. Another result demonstrated that 83.7% of students believed that using visuals in education is more effective than using text alone. Almost all students believed that infographics are an efficient way of learning and enhance their creativity, knowledge, motivation, imagination, and communication skills. Students of any age found infographics useful. In conclusion, all the students in the sample population of 163 students have positive opinions about integrating infographics into education and enhancing their learning skills.

Data visualization is an effective technique for teaching that helps communicate data quickly and memorably. Benefits of data visualization include quickly understanding visuals, simplifying complex data for better understanding, helping students identify patterns, outliers, and trends, and helping instructors disseminate information easily. In conclusion, data visualization is the intuitive, simple process of sharing data that helps students analyze and interpret data with better engagement and improved retention. Data visualization can be used in educational setups to enhance teaching practices by instructors as it helps the professors analyze their educational resources and study the student performance metrics and their feedback. An interesting take in this article is to teach students how to create data visualizations. Visualizing their data and learning to create visual forms of text data with software can help them develop an understanding of the software as well as help them interpret and analyze different data representations. 

“A picture is worth a thousand words.” This phrase highlights the importance of visual information in communicating meaning and leaving an impact on individuals. According to statistics in this article, people retain 10% of what they hear, 20% of what they read, and 80% of what they see. Hence, the application of visuals in e-learning becomes crucial for engagement, comprehension, and retention among learners. In addition, visual communication reduces the cognitive load on students, enhances understanding of the course content, and supports universal understanding. It is important to balance visuals with texts in e-learning courses for effective learning and knowledge retention. Lastly, types of visuals in e-learning mentioned in the article include images, charts and graphs, illustrations, infographics, animations and gifs, and characters.

Many infographics—such as data visualization, illustrated texts, timelines, versus comparisons, flowcharts, visual articles, and photo lists—are extremely engaging. They are accessible and persuasive forms of communication that make people believe what they are reading. In addition, visuals cut down the text information and it takes one-tenth of the time to understand visual information compared to text. Thus, infographics help readers comprehend information quickly. Students will have an advantage in understanding the information in a time-efficient way as the reading time is reduced (as stated above it takes one-tenth of the time to understand visual information). Moreover, visual information is a storytelling piece that makes the learning material fun and interesting, thereby enhancing student engagement.

This article focuses on the elements that must be included in designing an infographic. Data is any information that can be used to make comparative analyses. Thus, data visualization is one way to make the information easy to comprehend, in addition to an appropriate headline, brief introduction, and visual theme that tie everything together. Infographics should have a strong visual presence to draw engagement, and information should be presented in a way that aligns with the reading patterns. According to natural eye movement and reading patterns, readers read from left to right and from top to bottom. The article provides suggestions to enhance infographics, such as using appealing colours, staying consistent, placing important information at the top that attracts attention, not clustering information to ensure readability, and providing enough context to the data visualization. For maximum impact, different font sizes and styles should be used to attract attention (typically large font sizes), adequate white spaces should be used (i.e., strategic spaces to let readers digest the information given), and, ultimately, infographics should have a clear goal. The best infographics catch people’s attention immediately with visuals but also make them want to read and think more about the subject. The visual representation of information is easier to think about, understand, and retain; therefore, it can help the TRU media integration project work to create an effective framework based on the recommendations mentioned above.

This research supports using visuals in education to help improve student performance. It allows complex topics to be simplified, easily comprehended, and adopted by learners. To reduce text-based content, teachers can choose to incorporate different visualizations, such as graphics, charts, maps, diagrams, pictograms, drawings, scientific images, illustrations, etc. This helps enhance the cognitive abilities of students and provides a long-lasting impression on students’ minds because visual processing of graphics is faster than text. The research mentions that visuals enhance learning comprehension among students by 400%, thus making e-learning engaging and effective. Since visuals have a quicker and stronger impact on the brain than words, the approach benefits e-courses, blended delivery, and distance learning. The balance between written and visual content is highlighted to improve the learning environment and stimulate thinking. Another method to enhance student learning and its practical application is by assigning students work where they create their own infographics, which promotes active learning in and outside of the classroom.

The increasing importance of information design is due to the exponential growth of data and the need for organized, visually appealing presentation methods, such as infographics and data visualization. The article emphasizes incorporating visual communication into education to prepare students for the practical world. The researcher supports that such inclusion can enhance students’ skills in systematic thinking, creativity, and technology usage. In university open learning programs, where accessibility and flexibility are important, integrating data visualization and infographics and creating a visual communication design can enrich the learning experience for students. These tools not only offer practical skills but also help in critical thinking and interdisciplinary collaboration. By incorporating data visualization into open learning curriculum, universities can help learners with relevant skills navigate through the evolving demands of the digital era. Moreover, providing access to resources and platforms for interactive learning in these areas can enhance engagement and promote active participation among open learning students, regardless of their geographical location or background.

Infographics can be a valuable addition to support an asynchronous learning environment. This exploratory research introduced the idea of summarizing educational content at the end with infographics. The focus is on instructor-provided infographics for summarizing the content of the lesson. The researchers conducted surveys of student responses to instructor-provided infographics. To explore the retention, application, perceptions, and activity of instructor-provided infographics, qualitative and quantitative questions were formulated to examine the efficacy of the approach. To address the outcomes regarding students’ attitudes towards retention, comprehension, and appeal, the instructor provided infographics that indicated a significant level of understanding among learners. The combination of text and visuals helps in developing the learner’s working memory. Infographics offer an innovative approach to summarizing learning objectives, potentially enhancing retention, engagement, satisfaction, and higher-order learning abilities. An interesting finding of the research was that the learners downloaded the infographics for future use, demonstrating the usefulness of the infographics for retention and revision, bridging the gap between online and offline learning.

The study examines the use of infographics to facilitate learning among students in the field of graphic design and digital media. Data was collected through a quantitative questionnaire to seek responses from 99 learners. A problem the study identifies is the common learning problems arising from over-worldly presentations and course content provided by instructors. Incorporating infographics through the use of images and symbols, good design, attractive colours, concise text, diagrams, and charts solved this problem. A positive relationship between students and infographics in learning sessions was found along with improved understanding and concentration. Infographics aim to present data in a visually concise and comprehensive manner that increases the engagement of students. Therefore, infographics should be promoted as a valuable tool for addressing learners’ difficulties and improving their academic performance.

The article mentions several studies that support that visualization is better for retaining information than just text or audio alone (65% more in one study and the other study mentioned illustrated text had a retention rate of 83%). The article also mentioned that our brain is developed in a way that supports processing and retaining visual information much faster. Visuals are processed 60,000 times faster than text, 90% of the information transmitted to the brain is visual, and visuals have been found to improve learning by 400%. Visuals help in comprehension, student achievement, organizing and communicating ideas, and finding patterns and relationships. Moreover, the article also reinforces the idea of using visuals and graphics carefully with text to avoid creating confusion among learners.

For TRU Open Learning, communication can be precise and clear if done through different graphical representations based on the subject area and level of education. The right approach to address different questions should be taken into consideration before selecting the appropriate graphical representation methods. Before incorporating data visualization, the instructor should keep the following questions in mind. Who is the target audience? What message is the instructor trying to deliver? Should a graph be used? What information does the instructor have? What type of information is presented? These questions will help address what type of course and level of education the students have and understand what the graph is about and what things to focus on. The instructor should know how and when to integrate the graphical representation that will make a difference from the learning standpoint for the students and whether the data are complete and comprehensible.

This article aims to optimize data visualization uses to present it to diverse audiences. It addresses questions such as who is the target audience, what explanation needs to be provided, what message needs to be conveyed, and what would be the result of presenting information through data visualization. The psychology of humans is that they seek patterns, indicators, orders, or formats. To capitalize on these human tendencies, it is important to showcase data that makes sense visually. The article mentions a few suggestions for the appropriate use of data visualization, including choosing the right charts and graphs, informing data with colours, using shapes and design and incorporating them strategically, supplementing visual elements with text for better clarification, and integrating interactive elements. Overall, the article emphasizes the importance of thoughtful design and strategic use of visual elements to effectively communicate complex information through data visualization. By considering the audience and purpose and employing various design principles, visualizations can become powerful tools for conveying insights and facilitating understanding across diverse audiences.

The history of data visualization goes back thousands of years, with early examples of maps dating back to 8,000 years ago. Fast forward to the 19th century, a significant shift was seen as countries began publishing visual data on topics like weather, population, and economic activities. Researchers during this time started recognizing the power of visual images and the brain’s adaptability of processing visual information faster than words. Over time, the use of data visualization expanded across various fields, including warfare, politics, science, economics, and public health. With the help of technology and specialized software applications, almost any type of data can be transformed into visually appealing infographics, enhancing comprehension and communication of information. In the context of TRU Open Learning, taking references from the history of infographics and integrating data visualization techniques can greatly enhance student’s understanding of complex concepts. By incorporating visual elements into the curriculum, educators can improve student engagement, knowledge retention, and overall learning outcomes.

This article highlights that data visualization provides better learning outcomes compared to traditional teaching practices. Presenting visualizations in the curriculum is an effortless process because the human brain naturally recognizes and creates meaningful relationships with visual elements. Learners are empowered with a deep understanding of complex concepts. Data visualization can significantly transform how we comprehend, learn, and access online education. Various research findings and case studies claim that data visualization facilitates learning. The key benefits include an effortless learning process, improved retention rates, enhanced comprehension, persuasion and consensus building, quick decision-making, memorability, enhanced communication, and problem-solving skills. Overall, data visualization can create equal learning opportunities for all students by improving their visual senses, ultimately enhancing the learning experience.

This paper aims to determine whether infographics can be incorporated into online classrooms to enhance student learning. A survey was conducted to determine students’ perceptions on instructors providing infographics as a weekly summary. The results demonstrated that learners and educational professionals find visual learning effective and that visual tools—such as charts, bars, graphs, diagrams, flow charts, circles, hierarchies, and maps—support cognition-based learning. According to the results, infographics are valuable tools for managing and simplifying complex information concisely. Visual information helps students understand structures, conveys a story, and shows relationships. To support visual learning and diverse learning needs, infographics should be considered based on the demographics of online classrooms. Impactful infographics effectively summarize course concepts, clarify key ideas, establish motivation, support visual retention, and aid comprehension. All these aspects serve as a memorable reference tool and set a strong foundation for further understanding course content.

Media Attributions

The featured image was created by Jung-Lynn Jonathan Yang under a CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 license.