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Education Dive
Report: Multiple approaches to media literacy limit efforts to measure outcomes
Some experts, however, note that the wide variety of perspectives on
teaching students to develop "healthy skepticism" is a strength in the
field.
Linda Jacobson
July 11, 2019
Google announced new curriculum resources associated with its Be
Internet Awesome initiative last month that include lessons on how to
recognize fake websites and identify the way that those who create
media frame their messages by deciding what information to include.
The program is just one of an increasing array of media and news
literacy programs that have expanded since the 2016 presidential
election cycle in an effort to give students — and their teachers — the
skills to approach media messages, videos and images with a critical
eye.
A new report from the RAND Corp., however, notes that those programs
tend to define media literacy in multiple ways, emphasize different
competencies and use different approaches to measure outcomes. As a
result, the “dramatically different” ways that media literacy is
defined and measured make drawing any conclusions about these efforts
difficult.
Why the differences?
One reason for the variety of approaches is because media literacy —
and the researchers studying it — represent a range of fields, the
report says. These include journalism, political science, library
sciences, sociology and public health. The topic can also fit into
multiple places in the curriculum including social studies, English or
an elective.
The authors recommend more collaboration among experts from these
different disciplines, which could “facilitate the identification of a
set of common competencies, and even the development of some sets of
shared measures,” they write. They also call for the creation of an
“interdisciplinary commission” to work toward those goals and gather
information on the state of the field nationally.
“It’s kind of an emerging field and so it’s not surprising to me that
there’s still quite a bit of variety and ongoing discussion about how
to teach it and how to measure the effect of it,” said Jonathan
Anzalone, an assistant director and lecturer in the School of
Journalism at Stony Brook University in New York.
The university’s Center for New Literacy hosts teachers, school leaders
and librarians in a summer academy where they gain strategies for
teaching students how to evaluate the credibility of news reports and
sources. The academy also offers information about new technologies
being used to alter and fabricate messages, such as the ability of
artificial intelligence to create “deepfake”images and recordings.
“Healthy skepticism — we’re trying to make it second nature to people,” Anzalone said.
Searching for solid assessment plans
The report also discusses the mixture of assessment approaches used in
media literacy, which range from self-reports and multiple-choice
measures to portfolio assessments and observations of how students
interact with media. While self-reported measures are common, the
authors write that there are “significant, well-documented drawbacks”
to such assessments.
“A measure that asks participants to rate their own competency in
evaluating sources should not be interpreted as an accurate assessment
of actual competency in that area,” they write. “Additionally,
self-report measures are susceptible to social desirability bias; for
instance, a student might provide the response they believe their
teachers want to see."
But more objective measures are becoming available. The Stanford
History Education Group — which drew attention to students’ lack of
media evaluation skills in its 2016 study — has developed the
skills-based Civic Online Reasoning assessment, which can be given as a
pre- and post-test evaluation.
With a grant from the Rauch Foundation to work directly with school
districts, Anzalone said measuring student outcomes will become more
important. “As we’re engaging more with middle and high school teachers
and administrators, we really want to button down a solid assessment
plan,” he said.
In addition to educators having different perspectives on how to
approach the topic, there is also variation in how states that require
media literacy instruction in schools include it in the curriculum.
For some, it's a part of civics. Others include it in English language
arts or view the subject as a librarian’s responsibility to teach. And
some are linking media literacy — particularly safe and responsible use
of social media — to health and sex education.
"What’s still needed is broader buy-in from policymakers and
educational leaders to set policies so that [media literacy] ... is an
essential part of how we teach."
Media Literacy Now, a nonprofit advocating for the subject to be
included in state policy, has been tracking 15 media literacy-related
bills in 12 states this year. A bill in Colorado passed that will
create an advisory committee to focus on implementing media literacy in
elementary and secondary schools, and New York passed a resolution that
will proclaim this October as Information Literacy Month. Bills in
other states are pending.
"What’s still needed is broader buy-in from policymakers and
educational leaders to set policies so that [media literacy education]
isn't just an optional topic to cover but an essential part of how we
teach," said Tony Streit, a senior managing director of the Education
Development Center and a board member of the National Association for
Media Literacy Education (NAMLE).
'Perfect cross-curricular topic'
Streit and other experts in the field also say that while these
different definitions and approaches to teaching media literacy in
schools can be a challenge, they are also strengths.
“While standardizing definitions and outcomes might make it easier to
integrate media [or] news literacy into K-12 education and even college
programs, by limiting and omitting various viewpoints and approaches,
standardization could well stymie the area also,” said Natasha Casey, a
communications professor at Blackburn College in Carlinville, Illinois.
There are also practical reasons for weaving media literacy skills —
what NAMLE outlines as a set of key questions to ask about media
messages — across the curriculum, suggested Julie Smith, a
communications professor at Webster University in St. Louis and NAMLE
board member.
"Schools don't have enough time in the day to offer an actual media
literacy course," she said, "and it's a perfect cross-curricular topic,
but teachers don't have the training to add these skills to what
they're already teaching."
The RAND researchers also note that teaching students to evaluate claims should not be confined to one course.
“This a competency that can be applied in all academic areas, from
science to history,” they write. “For [media literacy] to build
resiliency to false information in the news media, in politics and
elsewhere, it will not be enough to teach students skills that apply to
specific areas. Instead, a more significant shift in the way we
interact with all information is required.”
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