Thesis Defence: Data visualizations of the learning experience in undergraduate creative thinking assignments

Monica Isabel Gomez Velez, supervised by Dr. Liane Gabora, will defend their thesis titled “Data visualizations of the learning experience in undergraduate creative thinking assignments” in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in Interdisciplinary Graduate Studies.

An abstract for Monica’s thesis is included below.

Examinations are open to all members of the campus community as well as the general public. Registration is not required for in-person defences.

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ABSTRACT

This research investigates the role of the educator, the digital humanities researcher, and the design of the creative learning experience as catalysts of the students’ meaning-making process. The results represent an experimental use of digital humanities research tools to analyze creative outputs from an undergraduate course to visualize the students’ learning experience and the dynamics of worldviews. Using an arts-based methodology and a multimodal mixed method research design, visualizations and narratives of the learning experience were created. Students’ creative texts were analyzed using the text analysis tools Voyant Tools and the Meaning Extraction Helper to secure validity through triangulation. The texts are narrative inquiries included in creative portfolios and final creative essays from an undergraduate visual design program in Medellin, Colombia. The research design facilitated the emergence of meaning from the data, which shed light on the learning experience. The thesis concludes with a critical reflection that reveals circumstances and tensions of the pedagogical-research practice in the digital context in order to propose creative learning and digital research value-driven strategies for meaningful learning and ethical research.