Double Entry Journal #6

Why did the authors do this study?
To study the effect a critical media literacy curriculum on student's reading, listening and viewing comprehension, writing and skills of message analysis.

How did the authors do the study?
They used two groups of students in the 11th grade, one as a control group that didn't receive any formal media literacy education, and one that attended a high school with a year long media studies and communication course as part of their language arts/english class. Both schools were of similar size, instructional quality and student demographics.
At the end of the year, the researchers administered a test to measure the student's comprehension and media/message-analysis skills. Three message formats were presented, and the students were asked a series of open-ended questions about each format. They used non-fiction media messages because of the media literacy curriculum's emphasis on non-fiction.

What data/results emerged from the study?
In reading comprehension - the students that had the media literacy curriculum scored higher than the control group. They performed "statistically significantly" better at identifying the main ideas and identifying details in a reading analysis.

In listening comprehension - the media literacy group scored higher in identifying the main ideas in a radio broadcast, but no differences were found when it came to identifying details.

In viewing comprehension, the treatment group that studied media-literacy scored better at identifying a main idea, and specific details in a television news broadcast.

"For all three formats, these results indicate that media-literacy instruction improves students' ability to understand and summarize information they learned from reading, listening, and viewing" (Hobbs & Frost, 2003).

In writing quantity & quality - the length of a paragraph rose significantly in the treatment group that studied media literacy. However, no statistically significant difference was found in the holistic writing quality. Spelling errors went down in both groups, but there were more spelling errors in the treatment group, which could be attributed to the increase in word count for that group.

Construction techniques - "results suggest that students receiving media-literacy instruction were significantly better than control-group students at the identification of specific construction techniques used to create print, audio and video messages.

Identifying point of view - rose significantly in the treatment group with the year-long media literacy curriculum, although both groups improved from the pre-test.

Without recreating the entire results list - to sum it up: the treatment group that studied media literacy scored either just as well, or in most cases, higher than the control group in analyzing print, audio & television messages.

 What do the authors conclude from the data analysis?
The authors conclude that a year-long media literacy curriculum is just as rigorous as a standard literature-based instruction in improving students' reading comprehension, writing, message-comprehension and critical-thinking skills. They also conclude that teachers need to "be less fearful of making use of a wider range of multimedia fiction and non-fiction texts as study objects..." (Hobbs & Frost, 2003).

What is the significance of the study?
It is the "first large-scale empirical work measuring the acquisition of media-literacy skills in the United States" (Hobbs & Frost, 2003) and it strongly suggests that the use of media in a language arts/english classroom can improve upon the students' comprehension and messaging skills. 

How do these findings influence your position on  media literacy and school curriculum?
The findings strengthen my belief that media-literacy should be part of a child's education, and that media could be a much needed addition to just literature based instruction in a language arts curriculum.This study influenced my views on literature based instruction, and made me question that standard. To me, it does seem like using media is a better way to teach those comprehension and analysis skills. If I think back to the last time I read a book, I have a hard time remembering when, but if I think to the last time I was reading something on the internet, - it was probably 10 times today.

Source:
Hobbs, R., & Frost, R. (2003). measuring the acquisition of media-literacy skills. Reading Research Quarterly, 38(3), 330-355. Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org/stable/4151822 .