The Social Dynamics of Data Literacy and Evidence-Based Decision-Making in Nigerian Universities

Abstract Data literacy-defined as the ability to locate, interpret, critically evaluate, and engage with data- is one of the overarching institutional competencies of the 21st century. However, the diffusion of data literacy into academic and administrative institutional cultures at the Nigerian university is superficial, inequitable and stubbornly under-theorised from an educational foundations perspective. This paper explores the socio-institutional dynamics through which data literacy is cultivated, negotiated, and utilized in Nigerian university environments from the perspective of the sociology of education, philosophy of education and educational psychology; it offers theoretical and empirical reasons why evidence-based decision (EBD) flourishes or languishes in certain organizational contexts. Drawing upon a convergent parallel mixed-methods approach, which involves survey responses from 420 university academic staff and administrators in 12 Nigerian universities coupled with thematic analysis of institutional policy documents (n = 38); the study identified five structural barriers to EBD in Nigerian universities, including poor digital infrastructure (72%), institutional lack of institutional data literacy capacity building(68%), strong anti-data culture(61%), fragile governance structures for data(57%) and staff Low Digital Self-Efficacy(53%). Significant geopolitical inequity is established (practicing EBD rates ranging from 11 percent in the Northeast to nine percent in the Northwest; contrasted with a 34 percent rate in the Southwest) due to compounded sociogeographical disadvantage. This paper provides the Nigerian University Data Literacy Integration Model (NUDLIM), a five-level framework built on educational foundation theories, and it provides policy recommendations on multiple levels and in particular relevance for Departments of Educational Foundations for the transformation of culture in favor of evidence. Keywords: Data literacy; decision-making; Nigerian higher education; evidence-based policy and practice