Visualization for comparative analysis of evaluation of licensed nursery schools by educational experts

Abstract

In recent years, licensed nursery schools in Japan have been evaluated from various perspectives. The Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare (MHLW) encourages local governments and operating organizations to undergo third-party evaluations to improve staff morale and gain parental trust. However, the results of these evaluations are usually presented as plain text for each item. This makes it difficult to compare and interpret the data intuitively. To address this issue, we developed a visualization system to support efficient analysis and understanding of third-party evaluation data. The system is designed for educational specialists from organizations and local governments, rather than childcare professionals. We collected evaluation data for licensed nursery schools in Bunkyo-ku, Tokyo, and applied clustering to group similar schools. This system maps the results using color coding to enhance visual clarity. We also implemented co-occurrence network analysis to visualize key expressions and reveal similarities and differences among nursery schools. This system improves the readability of evaluation content and enables intuitive comparative analysis across multiple nursery schools.