A Web-based Data Visualization Tool Regarding School Dropouts and User Asssesment

Abstract

Data visualization is important for understanding the enormous amount of data generated daily. The education domain generates and owns huge amounts of data. Presentation of these data in a way that gives users quick and meaningful insights is very important. One of the biggest challenges in education is school dropouts, which is observed from basic education levels to colleges and universities. This paper presents a web-based data visualization tool for school dropouts in Tanzania targeting primary and secondary schools, together with the users’ feedback regarding the developed tool. We collected data from the United Republic of Tanzania Government Open Data Portal and the President’s Office-Regional Administration and Local Government (PO-RALG). Python was then used to preprocess the data, and finally, with JavaScript, a web-based tool was developed for data visualization. User acceptance testing was conducted and the majority agreed that data visualization is very helpful for quickly understanding data, reporting, and decision making. It was also noted that the developed tool could be useful not only in the education domain but it could also be adopted by other departments and organizations of the government.