[{"data":1,"prerenderedAt":-1},["ShallowReactive",2],{"doc-detail-82668-en":3,"doc-seo-82668-105":29,"detail-sidebar-cat-0-en-105":90},{"code":4,"msg":5,"data":6},0,"success",{"doc_id":7,"user_id":8,"nickname":9,"user_avatar":10,"doc_module":4,"category_id":11,"category_name":12,"doc_title":13,"doc_description":14,"doc_content":15,"file_id":16,"file_url":17,"file_type":18,"file_size":19,"view_count":4,"is_deleted":4,"is_public":20,"is_downloadable":20,"audit_status":20,"page_count":21,"language":22,"language_code":23,"site_id":24,"html_lang":23,"table_of_contents":25,"faqs":26,"seo_title":13,"seo_description":14,"update_tm":27,"read_time":28},82668,1649267921044,"Ava Thompson","https://us-avatar.wpscdn.com/avatar/1800007509477c92dfb?_k=1782875107921204101",8,"Research & Report","Data Comics for Education: Evaluating Effectiveness, Benefits, and the Ethics of AI-Assisted Creation","In today’s data-driven learning environments, limited visualisation literacy makes it difficult for students to interpret visualisations and derive meaningful insights. Data comics have been proposed as an engaging medium, yet their educational effectiveness has lacked rigorous empirical evaluation. This study uses GenAI-assisted creation to compare conventional visualisations versus data comics in within-subject tasks, finding consistently better performance with data comics, along with greater engagement, while also emphasizing risks of GenAI misinformation and questions of ownership and transparency.","arXiv :2607 .0236 1v 1 [ cs .HC] 2 Jul 2026  \nData Comics for Education: Evaluating Effectiveness, Benefits, and the Ethics of AI-Assisted Creation  \nZirui Shan 1 , Vanessa Echeverria2 , Yuheng Li3 , Yi-Shan Tsai 1 , and Roberto  \nMartinez-Maldonado∗1  \n1 Faculty of Information Technology, Monash University, Melbourne,  \nAustralia  \n2 School of Computing Technologies, RMIT University, Melbourne, Australia  \n3 Department of Applied Social Sciences, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hong Kong, China  \nAbstract  \nIn today’s data-driven world, students often struggle with interpreting visualisations due to limited visualisation literacy. Data comics have emerged as a promising medium to enhance engagement and understanding, but their educational value has seen little empirical examination, partly due to the effort required to create them. Recent advances in Generative AI (GenAI) offer a scalable solution to this challenge. We conducted a within-subjects study with 60 university students, comparing conventional visualisations with data comics, created with assistance from GenAI tools, across information retrieval and comprehension tasks. Students consistently performed better with data comics, particularly in insight comprehension tasks, independent of prior visualisation literacy. Students also commented data comics as more engaging and easier to understand, though concerns were raised about GenAI-driven misinformation and ownership. Our findings highlight the potential of data comics as a potentially effective tool for data communication in education, while underscoring the need to address ethical concerns related to AI-assisted creation.  \nKeywords: Data Comics, Data Storytelling, Data Visualisation, Visualisation Literacy, Generative Artificial Intelligence  \n1 Introduction  \nIn recent years, technological advancements have generated vast amounts of data, driving innovations in analytics, which now underpin decision-making processes across industries [1, 2] .  \n∗ Corresponding author: [Roberto.MartinezMaldonado@monash.edu](Roberto.MartinezMaldonado@monash.edu)  \nHigher education, therefore, faces the challenge of preparing students from diverse disciplines to develop foundational skills in interpreting and using data for reasoning, problem-solving and critical thinking as part of their future professional practice [3–5] .  \nTo support these goals, educators have adopted a wide range of data visualisation approaches as a means for translating complex data into accessible visual formats [6, 7] . These visualisations, ranging from simple line charts to intricate alluvial diagrams, aim to communicate data-driven insights effectively [8] . However, students’ capacity to derive meaning from these visualisations, including identifying key data points and interpreting the insights they convey, is not solely a function of their exposure to them. It is shaped both by their level of visualisation literacy – the skills required to interpret and reason with visual data [7, 9] – and by the design choices that determine how information is encoded and presented in more intuitive ways [10] . Indeed, research suggests that students, including those in STEM-related disciplines (Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics) [11], often struggle to interpret data visualisations presented during class [12, 13] .  \nOne response to these educational challenges has been a trend toward adopting data storytelling, which integrates narrative structures with data visualisations to guide attention, highlight trends, and provide context for interpretation [14–16], presenting a promising design space for educational use [13, 17, 18] . Within this genre, data comics have emerged as a promising format that adapts the familiar structure of comics, such as panels, sequencing, characters, and narratives, to communicate data-driven stories [19–22] . This approach has been suggested as particularly supportive for novice students, while also fostering the gradua","cbCaivzPBmQs62tl","https://ap.wps.com/l/cbCaivzPBmQs62tl","pdf",25678890,1,54,"English","en",105,"# Abstract\n# Introduction\n## Visualisation literacy and challenges in higher education\n## Data storytelling and the emergence of data comics\n## Production bottlenecks and the role of GenAI\n## Ethical risks of AI-assisted creation","[{\"question\":\"How does the study compare data comics with conventional visualisations?\",\"answer\":\"The study conducts a within-subjects comparison with university students across information retrieval and comprehension tasks, contrasting conventional visualisations against GenAI-assisted data comics.\"},{\"question\":\"What learning outcomes improve when students use data comics?\",\"answer\":\"Students perform better with data comics, especially on insight comprehension tasks, regardless of their prior visualisation literacy.\"},{\"question\":\"What ethical concerns arise from using generative AI to create data comics?\",\"answer\":\"The document highlights concerns including GenAI-driven misinformation, bias, ownership, and the need for transparency before educational deployment.\"}]",1784182178,136,{"code":4,"msg":30,"data":31},"ok",{"site_id":24,"language":23,"slug":32,"title":13,"keywords":33,"description":14,"schema_data":34,"social_meta":85,"head_meta":87,"extra_data":89,"updated_unix":27},"data-comics-for-education-evaluating-effectiveness-benefits-and-the-ethics-of-ai-assisted-creation","",{"@graph":35,"@context":84},[36,53,67],{"@type":37,"itemListElement":38},"BreadcrumbList",[39,43,47,50],{"item":40,"name":41,"@type":42,"position":20},"https://docshare.wps.com","Home","ListItem",{"item":44,"name":45,"@type":42,"position":46},"https://docshare.wps.com/document/","Document",2,{"item":48,"name":12,"@type":42,"position":49},"https://docshare.wps.com/document/research-report/",3,{"item":51,"name":13,"@type":42,"position":52},"https://docshare.wps.com/document/data-comics-for-education-evaluating-effectiveness-benefits-and-the-ethics-of-ai-assisted-creation/82668/",4,{"url":51,"name":13,"@type":54,"author":55,"headline":13,"publisher":57,"fileFormat":60,"inLanguage":23,"description":14,"dateModified":61,"datePublished":61,"encodingFormat":60,"isAccessibleForFree":62,"interactionStatistic":63},"DigitalDocument",{"name":9,"@type":56},"Person",{"url":40,"name":58,"@type":59},"DocShare","Organization","application/pdf","2026-07-16",true,{"@type":64,"interactionType":65,"userInteractionCount":4},"InteractionCounter",{"@type":66},"ViewAction",{"@type":68,"mainEntity":69},"FAQPage",[70,76,80],{"name":71,"@type":72,"acceptedAnswer":73},"How 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