Research

Research articles on the Process Feedback project

Thinking beyond Chatbots’ Threat to Education: Visualizations to Elucidate the Writing or Coding Process

Badri Adhikari, Department of Computer Science, University of Missouri-St. Louis

Abstract: Despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary, educational practices continue to be predominantly centered around outcome-oriented approaches. These practices are now thoroughly disrupted by the recent accessibility of online resources and chatbots. Among the most affected subjects are writing and computer programming. As educators transform their teaching practices to account for this disruption, it is important to note that writing and computer programming play a critical role in the development of logical and computational thinking. For instance, what and how we write shapes our thinking and sets us on the path of self-directed learning. Likewise, computer programming plays a similar role in the development of computational thinking. While most educators understand that “process” and “outcome” are both crucial and inseparable, providing constructive feedback on a learner’s formative process is challenging in most educational settings. To address this long-standing issue in education, this work presents Process Visualizations, a new set of interactive data visualizations that summarize the inherent and taught capabilities of a learner’s writing or programming process. These visualizations provide insightful, empowering, and personalized process-oriented feedback to learners and help to improve cognitive and metacognitive skills. Likewise, they assist educators in enhancing their effectiveness in the process-aware teaching of writing or computer programming. The toolbox for generating the visualizations, named Process Feedback, is ready to be tested by educators and learners and is publicly available as a website.

Adhikari, Badri. 2023. \”Thinking beyond Chatbots’ Threat to Education: Visualizations to Elucidate the Writing or Coding Process\” Education Sciences 13, no. 9: 922.
https://doi.org/10.3390/educsci13090922

✓ double-blind peer-reviewed.

Accessible and Functional Visualizations for Exploring and Analyzing the Writing and Programming Process

Shaney Flores and Badri Adhikari

Master\’s Thesis defended on May 2023

Department of Computer Science, University of Missouri-St. Louis

Background. Developing easily decodable and insightful visuals is a challenge in the field of data visualization. This challenge becomes more pronounced when the data is of a complex nature. Good visualizations clearly convey their data using designs with appropriate encoding, visual attributes (i.e., color, shape, size, etc.), and accessibility features (e.g., distinctive colors for color-blind individu- als). One area where well-designed visualizations can make a significant impact is elucidating the learning process. Users ranging from self-taught individuals to students enrolled in coursework could use such visuals to detect problematic areas in their process of learning skills such as writing and coding and work proactively to address them. High school teachers and advanced university professors could also use these visuals to better structure their lesson plans and provide pointed feedback to students. Problem. We recently introduced a series of interactive data visuals using Plotly.js, a JavaScript visualization library, for exploring one’s own writing and coding process. However, methods for evaluating whether these visuals are suffi- ciently insightful and well-designed for their purpose is an open issue in the field. Results. In this work, we investigate a set of criteria, distilled from expert opin- ions in the field, for evaluating the effectiveness of a data visualization. As a case study, we determine whether our visuals meet these criteria and then highlight the strengths and weaknesses of our visuals, as well as technical limitations. Fi- nally, based on the best practices for interactive data visualization, we suggest techniques for improving their accessibility and effectiveness. Impact. Our suggested visualization improvements would benefit both learners and educators in structuring education to be more process-focused rather than results-focused.

(full thesis not yet ready for public view)

ProcessFeedback: A highly accessible and privacy-focused web platform for exploring a writing and coding process

Process Feedback Team

Abstract: This work describes the design, development, and implementation of ProcessFeedback, a privacy-focused single-page web application for learners to explore their writing and coding process. The application is highly accessible as it can be utilized without signing up or logging in. We provide a detailed description of the design, technologies used to build and host the application, algorithms, and design strategies used to generate the data visualizations. The visualizations generated by ProcessFeedback complement each other and collectively serve as a powerful tool for both qualitative (and potentially quantitative) observation, exploration, and examination of writers and programmers. The design and framework of the web application, which transparently stores data in a user’s browser local storage, also may serve as a template for other privacy-focused application development.

(in preparation)