Tangible Stats: An Embodied and Multimodal Platform for Teaching Data and Statistics to Blind and Low Vision Students

Abstract

Interactive data learning tools provide explorable ways for students to build intuitions about data, data representations, and statistical parameters. However, these tools rely on visual consumption and are not accessible to blind and low vision (BLV) students. In this work, we investigate opportunities to leverage active exploration, enriched with multimodal feedback and embodied interaction, to foster an understanding of the relationships among individual data values, data representations, and statistical measures. We explore these opportunities in the form of an accessible learning platform that allows students to hear and feel how statistical measures are changing in real time as they construct and manipulate physicalized data representations. We introduced the platform to four teachers of students with visual impairments (TVIs) through a two-hour-long focus group. TVIs embraced the platform's exploratory nature and universality and recommended the consideration of additional auditory and texture-based interactions to enhance engagement.