Through the Looking Glass: Insights into Visualization Pedagogy through Sentiment Analysis of Peer Review Text

Through the Looking Glass: Insights into Visualization Pedagogy through Sentiment Analysis of Peer Review Text

Citation

Beasley, Z., Friedman, A., Piegl, L., & Rosen, P. (2020). Leveraging peer feedback to improve visualization education. In 2020 IEEE Pacific Visualization Symposium (PacificVis) (pp. 146–155). IEEE. doi: 10.1109/PacificVis48177.2020.1261 

Keywords

  • Peer Review
  • Visualization
  • Courses
  • Learning Outcomes 

Brief

This article examines the use of peer review to improve student engagement and learning in visualization courses, analyzing peer review text to understand course trends and intervention effectiveness. 

Summary

This research paper examines peer review as a pedagogical tool in visualization education. The authors illustrate their findings using data from two distinct visualization courses at the University of South Florida: a "Data Visualization" course offered by the Computer Science department, and a "Visual Literacy" course offered by the Mass Communications department.

The paper highlights that while visual communication is experiencing rapid growth across disciplines, visualization education still faces challenges in providing students with adequate feedback, particularly regarding the subjective evaluation of visualizations. Peer review, as the authors argue, presents a valuable solution to this challenge.

Key arguments and findings presented in the paper include:

  • Peer review, as an active learning mechanism, can improve student engagement and reinforce course concepts in visualization courses. Students provide feedback on each other's work, applying learned concepts and terminology.
  • The authors analyzed peer review text using sentiment analysis and aspect extraction to gain insights into student engagement and course trends.
  • Analysis of student comments revealed differences in the terminology used by students in the two courses, suggesting the influence of disciplinary context on visualization education.
  • Data suggested a potential correlation between student engagement in peer review and their performance in the course. For instance, students who received lower grades tended to write longer reviews, possibly indicating greater effort.
  • The authors observed several benefits of peer review from an instructor's perspective, including the formalization of student collaboration, the opportunity for code review in programming-heavy courses, and insights into student learning.
  • The paper also acknowledges the limitations of peer review, including the potential for bias and the need for instructor oversight to ensure quality.

The authors conclude that peer review is a valuable tool for enhancing visualization education. They encourage the adoption of peer review, alongside rubric-based assessment and sentiment analysis, to promote visual literacy and improve instructor understanding of student engagement.

Origin: https://www.semanticscholar.org/reader/c94fa5ea111846f4212836ca507f278569f8791e

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