The original version of the annotated graph above was included in an article published in The International Review of Research in Open and Distributed Learning entitled "Investigating the Perceptions, Use, and Impact of Open Textbooks: A survey of Post-Secondary Students in British Columbia". The article was authored by a Kwantlen Polytechnic University psychology instructor, Rajiv Jhangiani, and his wife Surita Jhangiani, a UBC professor.
The article is based on a survey of 320 post-secondary students in B.C. who used an open textbook—also known as an open education, or free, resource—for one of their courses during 2015. The data visualization within it that I chose to analyze measures how respondents would describe the overall quality of the textbook they used in their course or courses.
It found that only 0.3 per cent of students described it as "very poor", while 3.2 per cent chose "below average" and 33.3 per cent chose "average". The most-chosen description of the textbook quality was "above average" at 36.2 per cent, and the remaining 26.9 per cent of respondents chose "excellent" as the most fitting descriptor.
While I find the data represented in this chart interesting, I find the chart itself largely ineffective.
As discussed in class, pie charts are often difficult to interpret accurately. Without the percentages clearly depicted on each section of the chart, it would be nearly impossible to understand which figures they represent. For this chart in particular, "average" and "above average" are such similar values that differentiating between them without a label would be confusing. Even "excellent" would be difficult to separate from "average" and "above average" without labels on the chart.
What makes this chart even less effective is that the middle has been omitted. I can't find any reasonable cause for removing the middle of the chart, and all it does is baffle me. I found myself so distracted by the ring shape of the chart that I was distracted from analyzing the data itself.
While slightly less detrimental to the utility of the chart, I also found that the dark green color for "excellent" made it difficult to read the black text that displays the percentage. That, and the similarity between the two greens on the chart would have been easier to tell apart if they weren't such similar shades.
Overall, I feel that this data would have been much easier to understand if it were visualized as a bar chart, which allows viewers to easily tell the relative size of each category. Because there are so few categories included in the graph, the data could have been represented more clearly and directly that way.
I agree with Aly’s criticism that points to the lack of clear differences between categories such as “average” and “above average”, and how without percentages, it would be difficult to know which figures are being referred to. However something I find even more confusing, and fundamental, is the lack of a title, which leaves me wondering what the chart is about. Even though there is a sentence providing information below the chart in the article, it is a little vague and seems overly descriptive. An overhead title such as 'Student's Perception of Open Textbooks' would more quickly capture the reader’s attention, and offer a more concise overview of the information being presented. A title above the legend might also be useful to clarify what kinds of categories are being used.
ReplyDeleteVery well written analysis and I agree that this chart would be difficult to interpret without the figures included. I also agree that the empty space in the middle serves no purpose and makes the chart more confusing, in addition to the similarity of the two shades of green for "above average" and "excellent."
ReplyDeleteWell written analysis. I completely agree that the data represented is interesting, but the execution was poorly done. I would love to see this information portrayed in a more interesting way. I would have loved to know if you had any positive thoughts on this chart, but understand that there is not much to praise about a poorly done pie chart.
ReplyDeleteI really appreciated how you spend the time to look into the background of the chart and explain the foundational knowledge to your readers how this chart came about. I agree that the pie chart is very difficult to understand what they were representing, therefore your detailed description of the pie chart would have been a big help for the author. However, I noticed that there was not much analysis on how charts should always be labeled with a clear title, and contextual information that may have helped the viewers. Furthermore, maybe some analysis on why you chose this chart aside from the obvious lack of visual descriptions. For example, were there any features that you appreciated about this pie chart?
ReplyDeleteI agree with your critiques of the pie chart. The white space is not necessary as well as the use of the pie chart in general. Without the use of percentages we as readers would have no idea about what each slice represented. I agree with you that a bar chart would have been much more appropriate to use.
ReplyDeleteI thought your critique of the pie chart was very comprehensive as you supported your argument with a lot of evidence. For example, you noted the ineffectiveness of pie charts when slices look similar in size and how, without the percentages, it would be difficult to understand. You further supported it by pointing out odd formatting and confusing colour choices. I agree with your opinion that a chart would make a better visualization. One point of improvement is a technical thing; just looking at the annotated picture, I couldn't tell what data was being communicated because the title, or figure description, wasn't included in the screenshot. Also, I think an important aspect the pie chart does display that could've been pointed it out is that, overall, most students did find open textbooks average and above in their usefulness and very few found them to be "very poor." Nevertheless, good critque!
ReplyDeleteI loved that you provided thorough background information about the author of the article and open textbook for readers who are not really familiar with ‘open textbook.’ Also, it was great that you suggested alternative type of chart - a bar chart, that could have worked better. I agreed on most of the points you made about color and pie chart, but really didn’t get what you said about the ring shape. I guess they might have wanted to put the title of the chart in the middle, speaking of which, is not on the viz which makes it look even more clumsy.
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