A Concept Analysis of Community Data Literacy

Every day, people are tasked with analyzing data to make decisions that impact their personal lives. Yet data literacy education initiatives for the public are limited. When such initiatives are supported by public libraries, they are usually targeted toward specific domains or audiences, such as workforce data literacy or census data literacy. This is problematic because an everyday life data-literate public fosters community resilience and produces data citizens who actively work to improve their quality of life. Still, more research is needed to determine how data literacy fits into community contexts. To better understand this phenomenon, Walker and Avant’s concept analysis approach was used to develop an operational definition of community data literacy and compare its attributes with a model case of adult literacy, numeracy, and adaptive problem-solving skills from the Program for the International Assessment of Adult Competencies. Findings from the analysis show that community data literacy strongly correlates with Program for the International Assessment of Adult Competencies Level 3 proficiency levels in literacy and numeracy. As a result, it may be concluded that community data literacy can serve as a surrogate of critical literacy in public libraries’ adult literacy programs.