Measuring the acquisition of media-literacy skills€¦ · While such approaches to literacy appear to ... K– 12 education, some literacy educators see much to gain in rejecting

Reading Research QuarterlyVol 38 No 3

JulyAugustSeptember 2003copy2003 International Reading Association

(pp 330ndash355)

M e asu r in g th e a cq u is it io n o fm ed ia - lite ra c y sk ills RENEE HOBBSRICHARD FROSTBabson College Wellesley Massachusetts USA

xpanded conceptualizations of literacy have proliferated throughout the 1990s andinto the new millennium Many think the definition of literacy itself is in a height-ened state of evolution and work with visual media interactive technologies andthe expressive arts is beginning to be seen in parallel with the skills of reading andwriting (Tyner 1998) Alphabetic literacy while exceptionally valuable is now rec-ognized as one of the many competencies of representation needed for cultural suc-cess as individuals routinely switch between speaking listening writing readingviewing and producing symbolic forms to share meanings (Graff 1995 Hobbs1994) According to Eisner (1999)

[e]ach of the forms of representation that exist in our culturemdashvisual forms in art auditoryforms in music quantitative forms in mathematics propositional forms in science choreograph-ic forms in dance poetic forms in languagemdashare vehicles through which meaning is conceptual-ized and expressed (p 1)

Support for expanding the concept of literacy is articulated by those interestedin making classrooms sites for authentic learning in student-centered environments(Luke 1997 Masterman 1985) as well as those who see the value of recognizingreading and writing as practices that are socially and culturally constructed(Alvermann amp Hagood 2000 Buckingham 1998 Nixon amp Comber 2001)Scholars who situate literacy within the contexts of culture and child developmentargue that the range and diversity of ldquotextsrdquo used in the classroom must be expandedto include artifacts of popular culture These scholars identify a range of potentialoutcomes such as the following (a) to increase learning by making the practices ofliteracy relevant to studentsrsquo home cultures and ways of knowing (BazalgetteBevort amp Savino 1992 Ellsworth 1997) (b) to accommodate diverse learningstyles and meet the needs of multicultural learners (Cortes 2000 Semali 2000Tobin 2000) and (c) to develop creativity self-expression teamwork and work-place skills (Brunner amp Tally 1999 Considine amp Haley 1999 Masterman 1985)

E

330

331

Students who participated in a required yearlong Grade 11 English mediacommunication course that incorporat-ed extensive critical media analysis of print audio and visual texts were compared with students from a demo-graphically matched group who received no instruction in critically analyzing media messages A nonequivalentgrouprsquos design examined studentsrsquo reading comprehension writing skills critical reading critical listening and crit-ical viewing skills for nonfiction informational messages Results suggest that media literacy instruction improvesstudentsrsquo ability to identify main ideas in written audio and visual media Statistically significant differences werealso found for writing quantity and quality Specific text analysis skills also improved including the ability toidentify the purpose target audience point of view construction techniques used in media messages and the abil-ity to identify omitted information from a news media broadcast in written audio or visual formats

Measuring theacquisition ofmedia literacyskills

Un grupo de once estudiantes participoacute en un curso anual de grado 11 sobre medios y comunicacioacuten en ingleacutesque incorporoacute un extenso anaacutelisis criacutetico de los medios en textos impresos y audiovisuales Este grupo se comparoacutecon un grupo demograacuteficamente similar que no recibioacute instruccioacuten en anaacutelisis criacutetico de los medios Mediante undisentildeo de grupos no-equivalentes se examinaron la comprensioacuten lectora las habilidades de escritura la lecturacriacutetica la audicioacuten criacutetica y las habilidades de observacioacuten criacutetica de mensajes informativos no de ficcioacuten Los resul-tados sugieren que la instruccioacuten en anaacutelisis criacutetico de los medios mejora la habilidad de los estudiantes para iden-tificar ideas principales en medios impresos o audiovisuales Se hallaron tambieacuten diferencias estadiacutesticamente sig-nificativas en la cantidad y calidad de la produccioacuten escrita Asismismo mejoraron las habilidades especiacuteficas deanaacutelisis textual incluida la habilidad para identificar el propoacutesito la audiencia el punto de vista las teacutecnicas deconstruccioacuten usadas en los mensajes de los medios y la habilidad para detectar informacioacuten omitida en una trans-misioacuten de noticias en formato escrito o audiovisual

Midiendo laadquisicioacuten dehabilidades dealfabetizacioacuten atraveacutes de losmedios

Elfte Klasse Schuumller die an einem einjaumlhrigen Pflichtfach in Media-EnglischKommunikation der 11 Klasse teil-nahmen welches ausfuumlhrliche kritische Media-Analyse von Druck Audio und visuellen Texten einschloszlig wur-den mit Schuumllern einer demografisch ebenbuumlrtigen Gruppe verglichen die keine Anweisungen zum kritischenAnalysieren von Mediamitteilungen erhielten Ein nicht equivalenter Gruppenraster untersuchte LeseverstaumlndnisSchreibbefaumlhigung kritisches Lesen kritisches Zuhoumlren und Faumlhigkeiten kritischer Meinungsaumluszligerung beiInformationen von Tatsachenberichten Die Ergebnisse lassen darauf schlieszligen daszlig Medienunterricht im Schreibenund Lesen die Faumlhigkeit der Schuumller zum Erkennen wesentlicher Ideen der schriftlichen audio- und visuellenMedien verbessert Ebenfalls fanden sich statistisch bedeutende Unterschiede beim quantitativen und qualitativenNiederschreiben Bestimmte Textanalysefaumlhigkeiten verbesserten sich gleichzeitig einschlieszliglich der Faumlhigkeit ausden genutzten Mediamitteilungen Zweck Zielzuhoumlrerschaft Standpunkt Satz-Sprachkonstruktionstechniken zuidentifizieren und die Faumlhigkeit unterdruumlckte Informationen beim Ausstrahlen von Nachrichtenmedia inschriftlichen audio oder visuellen Formaten zu identifizieren

Messen desErwerbs vonMedia Schreib-und Lese-Erkenntnissen

ABSTRACTS

332

On a compareacute des eacutelegraveves de Terminale qui avaient participeacute agrave un cours drsquoun an sur la Communication et les meacute-dias en anglais cours qui comportait une analyse critique deacuteveloppeacutee des meacutedias eacutecrits audios et videacuteos agrave deseacutelegraveves drsquoun groupe apparieacute sur le plan sociologique et qui nrsquoavait pas reccedilu drsquoenseignement relatif agrave lrsquoanalyse cri-tique des messages deacutelivreacutes par les meacutedias Un plan pour groupes non eacutequivalents a permis drsquoexaminer la com-preacutehension en lecture des eacutelegraveves les compeacutetences en eacutecriture lecture critique eacutecoute et visionnement critiques demessages informatifs non-fictionnels Les reacutesultats suggegraverent qursquoun enseignement de la litteacuteratie des meacutediasdeacuteveloppe la capaciteacute des eacutelegraveves agrave identifier les ideacutees principales dans les meacutedias eacutecrits audios et videacuteos On a aussitrouveacute des diffeacuterences significativesdans lrsquoeacutecriture en quantiteacute et en qualiteacute Ont eacuteteacute eacutegalement deacuteveloppeacutees des com-peacutetences speacutecifiques agrave lrsquoanalyse des textes notamment la capaciteacute agrave identifier le but le public viseacute le point de vueles techniques de construction utiliseacutees dans les messages des meacutedias et la capaciteacute agrave identifier une information omisepar une chaicircne qursquoelle soit eacutecrite audio ou videacuteo

Mesurerlrsquoacquisition des

compeacutetences enlitteacuteratie des

meacutedias

ABSTRACTS

While such approaches to literacy appear tothreaten the central position of print literacy inKndash12 education some literacy educators see muchto gain in rejecting the rigid hierarchies that positionthe printed word as the exclusive form for the repre-sentation of knowledge and expression in the class-room In a review of the field of teaching literacythrough the visual and communicative arts FloodHeath and Lapp (1997) emphasized that societynow demands the ability to engage in the meaning-making process from increasingly complex and lay-ered combinations of messages that use video audioand print representations They also pointed out thatvisual and communication arts develop studentsrsquoskills of self-presentation empathy-building collab-orative learning and the ability to focus on severalthings at once in addition to the motivational bene-fits stemming from classroom activities that incorpo-rate the visual and electronic media arts

While visual and electronic messages are nowcentral aspects of contemporary culture they are stilloften ignored or treated superficially in the class-room Why There are a number of reasons worthexamining First literacy educators have long elevat-ed one form of literacy over others as Goody andWatt (1988) noted about the long-subordinated po-sition of speaking and listening within the curricu-lum Second Flood et al (1997) stated that teachersrsquoldquoirrational loyalty to reading and writingrdquo (p xvi)may come from their fears that childrenrsquos media usedisplaces their use of print a fear that is not wellsupported in a comprehensive review of 30 years ofresearch evidence (Neuman 1995) There is a thirdreason why teachers are suspicious of expanding con-ceptualizations of literacy Some pervasive misuses oftelevision and video technologies in the classroom(when used as substitute teaching to fill time to re-ward good behavior or without clear connection tothe curriculum) are long-standing practices in Kndash12classrooms (Hobbs 1994 Moody 1999) The nor-malization of such practices in some schools maycreate a negative incentive discouraging rigorouscurriculum-based experimentation with creative in-structional approaches using television and video(Lusted 1991) Finally the film studies approachused in teaching film as literature which is nowmore common in secondary English language artsmay inculcate the view that such work is not for thegeneralist teacher and requires specialist trainingfurther depressing interest levels among regular class-room teachers (Film Education Working Group1999 Lusted 1991)

In general including visual and electronic me-dia within the sphere of literacy increases the com-

plexity of how to think about literacy in an informa-tion age especially because a range of different aca-demic fields are contributing to these initiatives fromtheir separate disciplinary traditions In an era of in-formation overload these new ideas provide ldquoenoughbackground static to make the task of unifying thefield all the more cumbersomerdquo (Tyner 1998 p 67)creating a laundry list of concepts and approaches inEnglish language arts that have become unwieldy foreducators in the classroom

In The Rise and Fall of English Robert Scholes(1998) recognized this problem and recommended amajor overhaul in the teaching of English by replac-ing the canon of literary texts with a canon of con-cepts precepts and practices for investigating themeaning-making process He suggested that restoringthe medieval trivium of grammar dialectic andrhetoric as the center posts in English education willhelp students ldquosituate themselves in their own cul-tureand make the basic processes of language itselfintelligible and fully available for userdquo (p 119)Scholes urged that English language arts educationincorporate a wide range of ldquotextsrdquo including filmtelevision advertising the Internet and popular me-dia Aligned with this suggestion Alvermann Moonand Hagood (1999) emphasized the development ofstudentsrsquo critical thinking skills by guiding studentsthrough a process of learning how to question theirown pleasures in reading viewing and listening

Such approaches may enhance the acquisitionof print literacy skills For example Neuman (1995)pointed out that some of the cognitive skills involvedin reading including inference making and visualiza-tion may be enhanced by opportunities for explicitmetacognitive practice with the use of video film orother nonprint media An increasing number of cur-riculum materials for middle school students arespecifically designed to strengthen reading compre-hension skills with the use of media-literacy activities(Center for Media Literacy 2001) Activities thatemploy media-analysis skills in the context of lan-guage arts instruction may help students internalizeanalytic concepts for improving reading comprehen-sion For example analyzing the setting speechthoughts and dialogue in a film scene may help stu-dents understand identify and evaluate those ele-ments of character development in literatureParticularly for struggling or reluctant readers op-portunities to analyze media texts may help internal-ize understanding of concepts like genre point ofview and tone such work may improve visualizationand inference-making skills needed for skillful read-ing (Hobbs 2001) Along with a small but growingnumber of literacy educators both Neuman and

Measuring the acquisition of media-literacy skills 333

Hobbs argued that synergistic approaches that useboth print and nonprint communication forms inthe classroom must replace competition betweenthem as literacy educators begin to explore new waysof using the expanded multimedia environment toenrich the lives of children and youth

Current approaches to media-literacy education

Media literacy defined generally as ldquothe abilityto access analyze evaluate and communicate mes-sages in a wide variety of formsrdquo (Aufderheide ampFirestone 1993) emphasizes the skills of analyzingevaluating and creating media and technology mes-sages that make use of language moving imagesmusic sound effects and other techniques(Masterman 1985 Messaris 1994) In assessing thegrowth of multiliteracies Tyner (1998) distinguishedbetween those that emphasize tool use (technologyliteracy computer literacy network literacy) andthose that are essentially literacies of representation(information literacy visual literacy and media liter-acy) Of the latter three media literacy has the mostestablished conceptual base as a result of years of in-ternational practice in formal educational settings

Drawing upon a 25-year tradition in theUnited Kingdom Canada and Australia (for reviewsee Alvarado amp Boyd-Barrett 1992) there has beensubstantial progress in the United States as a coali-tion of educators has formed a national associationand held annual conferences (Rogow 2001) Therehas been increasing momentum to include media-literacy skills within state curriculum frameworksFor example Texas has expanded the number of lan-guage arts to sixmdashviewing and representing havebeen added to reading writing speaking andlisteningmdashwith specific outcome expectations inEnglish language arts for grades 4ndash12 (TexasEducation Agency 1998) More than 40 states in-cluding Massachusetts North Carolina and NewMexico have identified media-literacy skills withinlanguage arts social studies fine and performingarts library-information skills or health educationcurricula (Kubey amp Baker 1999)

While scholars have pointed out the fragment-ed nature of the concept of media literacy with anumber of ongoing debates about the practices ped-agogies and politics embedded in it (Hobbs 1998)an approach that emphasizes constructivist interdis-ciplinary collaborative nonhierarchical andinquiry-based processes of learning is emerging as a

dominant paradigm (Alvermann et al 1999Bazalgette 1993 Brunner amp Tally 1999 Considineamp Haley 1999 Film Education Working Group1999 Giroux amp Simon 1989 Hobbs 1996Masterman 1985 Watts Pailliotet amp Mosenthal2000) As students practice questioning media andother information they may begin a process of inter-nal questioning every time they encounter mediamessages without prompting from the teacherAccording to Tyner (1998) ldquo[i]t is the hope of criti-cal pedagogists that this habitwill create criticallyautonomous citizens who question information andauthority as a matter of courserdquo (p 199)

Media literacy in Kndash12 environments generallyfeatures activities that invite students to reflect onand analyze their own media consumption habits(Anderson 1983 Brown 1991 Kubey amp Baker1999) to identify author purpose and point of viewin films commercials television and radio programsmagazine and newspaper editorials (Considine ampHaley 1999 Hobbs 1999) to identify the range ofproduction techniques that are used to communicatepoint of view and shape audience response (Brunneramp Tally 1999 Film Education Working Group1999 Messaris 1994) and to identify and evaluatethe quality of mediarsquos representation of the world byexamining patterns of representation stereotypingemphasis and omission in print and television newsand other media (Alvermann amp Hagood 2000Alvermann et al 1999 Sholle amp Denski 1994Tyner 1998) Other media-literacy activities ofteninclude an appreciation of the basic economic un-derpinnings of mass media industries as well as en-gender familiarity and experience in using massmedia tools for personal expression and communica-tion and for purposes of social and political advocacy(Hobbs 1994 Prinsloo amp Criticos 1991) Theseskills and activities may have an impact on studentsrsquomotivation to develop more sophisticated readingwriting and analysis skills (Kubey 1998)

There is a small body of research that exploresthe impact of media-literacy instruction on the cog-nitive skills attitudes and behaviors of young peo-ple A history of the first phase of implementingcritical-viewing skills instruction in the 1980s re-vealed that most evaluation models examined theprogram outcomes on very small numbers of stu-dents usually a single classroom often in interven-tions designed and implemented by researchers(Anderson 1983) Studies have examined whether abrief six-hour exposure to media-literacy educationaffected childrenrsquos ability to distinguish between thereal and fictional elements of a program (DorrGraves amp Phelps 1980) whether a three-hour-a-

334 Reading Research Quarterly JULY AUGUSTSEPT EMBER 2003 383


week curriculum for elementary school studentshelped students identify genre and syntactical struc-ture (Anderson 1983) and whether an eight-sessioncourse on media literacy improved knowledge ofcamera and editing production techniques and theeconomics of media production (Singer Zuckermanamp Singer 1980) More recently studies have ex-plored whether students learned the facts vocabu-lary and information provided as part of theinstruction (Baron 1985 Kelley Gunter amp Kelley1985) or whether a video broadcast about media lit-eracy affected cognitive or critical-analysis skills(Vooijs amp Van der Voort 1993) Health researchershave examined the effect of media-literacy instruc-tion on elementary school studentsrsquo attitudes aboutalcohol (Austin amp Johnson 1997 Goldberg ampBechtel nd) In addition case studies from a num-ber of countries have documented teachersrsquo instruc-tional strategies in implementing media literacy inclassrooms (Alvermann et al 1999 Hart 1997Michie 1999)

Studies using group designs remain the prima-ry means for assessing whether educational interven-tions have beneficial effects on students Althoughqualitative studies can provide valuable insights onthe process of change and enhance understanding offacets of teaching and learning (Babbie 1998) experimental or nonexperimental group designsremain a standard used by external audiences inassessing the effectiveness of a novel intervention(Cook amp Campbell 1979) Little school-based em-pirical research has been conducted to demonstratethe impact of media-literacy curriculum on studentsrsquoattitudes behavior knowledge and academic perfor-mance In the first quantitative measurement ofmedia-literacy skills Quin and McMahon (1995)conducted research on a sample of 1500 students inWestern Australia They created an evaluation instru-ment that provided students with a specific visualmedia message with multiple-choice and open-ended questions in a paper-and-pencil assessmentStudents identified the messagersquos purpose target au-dience point of view and qualities of representationIn the United States Hobbs and Frost (1999) measured ninth-grade studentsrsquo media-analysis skillsin four different classroom contexts using a mea-surement approach adapted from the work of Quinand McMahon Students answered multiple-choiceand open-ended questions about a television newssegment and identified the target audience the de-sign qualities that attracted audience attention thepoints of view expressed similarities and differencesto other messages within the genre and what infor-mation was omitted After 12 weeks of instruction

findings showed that students whose teachers inte-grated media-literacy concepts and activities with ex-isting curriculum outperformed those in otherclasses whose teachers used ldquooff the shelf rdquo curricu-lum As yet research has not examined the impact ofmedia literacy on the development of reading com-prehension and writing skills The present study wasdesigned to evaluate the impact of a secondary lan-guage arts curriculum which was developed in oneschool district to determine its effects on studentsrsquoreading listening and viewing comprehensionwriting and skills of message analysis

Media literacy in English language arts One schoolrsquos approach

Concord High School is one of a small num-ber of high schools in the United States to fully inte-grate media literacy for all its students During thespring of 1998 the school board approved a plan toreorganize the high school English language arts cur-riculum to include a full yearlong curriculum inmediacommunications for all grade 11 studentsThe initiative was developed by a team of Englishteachers who reviewed the high school curriculumafter a school building project had led to the expan-sion of the school to include grade 9 students whowere for many years enrolled in the districtrsquos middleschools For faculty in the English program antici-pating the arrival of grade 9 students provided theopportunity to step back and reflect on the overallsecondary curriculum in English language artsldquoWhen we looked at the curriculum we thought wewere doing a good job preparing students to beEnglish majors in collegerdquo said Elizabeth YorkEnglish department coordinator

We needed to do more to prepare all our students not just thefew who wanted to be English majors What we needed todo is help students to be skillful in all the messages that theyare surrounded with every day of their lives To prepare themfor life means more attention to nonfiction more attentionto media messages and diverse forms of communication

According to Bob Cowan veteran ConcordHigh School English teacher ldquoWe designed a year-long program in mediacommunications that em-phasizes the analysis of media messages and examinessome broader social and cultural issues about the roleof the media in society and for the lives of individu-alsrdquo The faculty decided to restructure the scope and

sequence for secondary English language arts Thenew sequence includes grade 9 American literaturegrade 10 world literature grade 11 mediacommunications and grade 12 English electives in-cluding poetry creative writing Shakespeare mediaproduction and others From the perspective of thefaculty this approach would be the best fit for theirstudents because it aligned closely with the programof studies for history and social studies and wouldtake advantage of interdisciplinary and cross-curricu-lar opportunities that were valued by the faculty andstudents

Seven teachers collaborated to construct thecurriculum which involved students analyzing clas-sic and contemporary literature as well as televisionshows print and television journalism films adver-tising political speeches and business and interper-sonal communications (York amp Aubry 1999)Faculty members who were selected to participate inthe new course (based on interest and schedulingavailability) had a mix of classroom experience Twoteachers were veterans with over 30 years of teachingtwo others were midcareer teachers two had beenteaching for less than 10 years and one was a teacherin her first year of teaching Grade 11 teachers in-cluded four white women and three white men andwhile the schoolrsquos principal described the team asldquostrongrdquo he also made it clear that there were a num-ber of exceptional faculty in the English departmentwho were not teaching the grade 11 mediacommu-nications course None of the teachers had an ad-vanced degree in media studies although one teacherhad a doctorate in education Their attitudes aboutthe media were substantially diverse with oneteacher a self-described ldquonews media junkierdquo anoth-er with only one little-used television in his homeand another with a particular interest in mass com-munication theories of media influence Two of theseven teachers did not enjoy teaching this course andswitched to teach other grade levels in the subse-quent school year (Analysis of teacher attitudes andbehavior during the program implementation andthe impact of attitudes on curriculum implementa-tion is under preparation by the first author)

It is important to note that the Concord HighSchool English language arts faculty has a strong be-lief in and respect for the benefits of heterogeneousgrouping While other academic programs at thehigh school are tracked the English faculty has beenconsistently firm in maintaining heterogeneousgrouping despite some informal pressure from par-ents and faculty colleagues The faculty believed thatthe grade 11 course in mediacommunications

would further help build opportunities for peer-to-peer learning experiences that benefit all students

The seven teachers selected six well-knownworks of literature and nonfiction that they woulduse in common They shared some videotapes andused some common writing and other activitieswhich were stored on a fileserver in the faculty work-room Faculty members shared their assignments for-mally via a binder of materials maintained in theworkroom as well as through informal dialogue inweekly staff meetings

In order to prepare for teaching the newcourse three members of the grade 11 team attended a 1998 conference at Clark University inWorcester Massachusetts entitled Teaching theHumanities in a Media Age Organized as a nationalteacher education institute for educators this staffdevelopment program funded by a grant from theArthur Vining Davis Foundations and ATTFoundation involved teachers from four school dis-tricts Atlanta Georgia Los Angeles California St PaulMinneapolis Minnesota and WorcesterMassachusetts (Hobbs 1999) The first author ofthe study had contact with three Concord teachersonly during this weeklong staff development experi-ence and did not play a role in the development ofthe curriculum content or instructional processes

Grade 11 teachers did adopt the five framingquestions presented at the Clark staff developmentprogram that they believed would help to unifytheir curriculum Who is sending this message andwhat is the authorrsquos purpose What techniques areused to attract and hold attention What lifestylesvalues and points of view are represented in thismessage How might different people interpret thismessage differently What is omitted from this mes-sage Critical questions like these have been effectivein introducing and sustaining reflective practice andmetacognitive skills among students and teachers asdescribed by Deborah Meier (1996) founder of theCentral Park East complex of schools in New YorkCity While teachers did share materials and re-sources with others each teacher designed and usedvarious units of instruction according to his or herindividual perspective All included the formal studyof four key areas (a) advertising persuasion andpropaganda (b) the analysis and construction ofnews and nonfiction (c) approaches to storytellingin dramatic fiction and (d) the representation ofgender race and ideology in media messages (Yorkamp Aubry 1999) Because of the need to share bookseach teacher taught using these materials at differenttimes and in different sequential order during theschool year



The school principal and the districtrsquos schoolboard had approved the new program with only onecaveatmdashthat the program be academically rigorousAccording to principal Tim Meyer

The one concern that was raised was the concern that theprogram maintain high expectations for the development ofstudentsrsquo critical thinking writing reading and analysisskills [The school board members said] ldquoDonrsquot lose the em-phasis on some of the basic skills that kids needmdashreadingwriting interpreting literaturerdquo

As mentioned earlier although the faculty membershad interests in mediacommunications none pos-sessed any particular disciplinary expertise in mediastudies They were most comfortable in analyzing lit-erature and strengthening studentsrsquo writing and read-ing skills interviews showed that teachers weremoderately confident that the new course wouldbuild bridges between media study and literary un-derstandings of the meaning-making process andwould be as academically rigorous as other courses inthe secondary English language arts curriculum

As a result classroom activities ranged widelyduring the course of the school year from traditionalliterature-based language arts to activities more fo-cused on specific media forms Teachers made an ef-fort to make a mediacommunications connectionwhen they were doing more traditional reading liter-ary analysis and writing activities For example stu-dents analyzed point of view in Ken Keseyrsquos 1960sbook One Flew Over the Cuckoorsquos Nest (2003Penguin USA) examining how the book and thefilm use different strategies to tell the story throughmanipulating point of view After reading MaryShelleyrsquos Frankenstein students examined the differ-ent depictions of the birth of the monster in themany different film versions from the 1930s to thepresent time When they read Aldous Huxleyrsquos BraveNew World they discussed similarities and differ-ences between the futuristic visions of Huxley thoseof George Orwell and trends in contemporary soci-ety

Teachers also designed specific units of instruc-tion on the representation of men and women in themedia and the power of advertising In some classesstudents traced patterns in the evolution of familieson television looking critically at the representationof men women and children in situation comediesof different eras Other students examined changesin talk shows on television and the patterns of gen-der stereotyping in television programming Somelearned about the economics of media by studyingthe history of childrenrsquos television With advertisingstudents analyzed the techniques and approaches

used in print and television Writing assignments en-couraged students to examine ads and describe targetaudiences recognize the use of emotional appealsand notice how graphic design elements were used tocompel viewer attention Some students visited anadvertising agency and interviewed key staff mem-bers Others taught a mini-unit on advertising toyounger children created ad parodies or constructedconsumer awareness campaigns using fliers radio ad-vertising and print media (York amp Aubry 1999)

In studying nonfiction media and journalismstudents analyzed newscasts including local nation-al and newsmagazine broadcasts They wrote newsstories The five critical questions were used routine-ly in instruction to help students internalize meta-cognitive strategies to assess audience purpose andpoint of view Assignments asked students to critical-ly review newspapers and websites comparing cover-age of an event or individual across multiple sourcesNumerous and regular assignments with the localdaily newspaper the Concord Monitor involved theanalysis of word choice images sequence of infor-mation content emphasis and omission and pat-terns in racial and gender representation Studentsexplored the ways in which narrative elements areused to attract and hold attention in nonfiction mes-sages by writing nonfiction themselves

Teachers used a variety of instructional meth-ods to scaffold studentsrsquo learning including viewingand discussing paired reading journal writing ques-tion sharing and other methods to promote richdiscussion in the classroom There were numerouswriting assignments throughout the yearChallenging assignments offered advanced studentsspecial opportunities to extend the learning experi-ence through additional reading writing and mediaproduction activities

It is not surprising that teachers were leastcomfortable with exploring the following media gen-res that were most central in the lives of their stu-dents popular music current films video games theInternet and sports Some teachers created moremodest learning experiences to explore these formshowever But occasionally teachers struggled withpersonal tensionsmdashwanting to use texts with thecurrency of contemporary media yet torn by someresidual feelings about the need to protect studentsfrom inappropriate messages particularly when theBill Clinton-Monica Lewinsky scandal was breakingin Washington As one teacher said ldquoIrsquom strugglingwith how much lurid material we have to look atDo we have to look at it to talk about it I want tofind some other little more safe terrain Thatrsquos theconventional side of merdquo

In the programrsquos first year of implementationthere was less emphasis on media production in thiscurriculum than might have been desirable Studentsdid create their own advertising messages take pho-tos write headlines and cutlines and create graphicdisplays Some teachers had students use publicationand presentation software to create messages Otherstudents used their home video equipment to com-plete assignments that could be submitted in audio-visual form However the bulk of studentsrsquo work wassubmitted in written form Why wasnrsquot media pro-duction more central to the instructional programFirst teachers did not have much experience in de-signing and managing whole-class media productionactivities which can present organizational chal-lenges even to experienced teachers (Film EducationWorking Group 1999 Lusted 1991 Masterman1985) Second there was a grade 12 elective in me-dia production already available to students withspecial interests in this so that in comparison to oth-er activities some teachers didnrsquot feel it was worth-while to spend four weeks on a media productionactivity especially given their own inexperience inmedia production ldquoTherersquos too much that can gowrongrdquo noted one teacher ldquoNext year when Irsquove gotmore familiarity with this stuff Irsquoll try itrdquo Teachersfelt limited by their own experience with visual me-dia as well as the challenges of designing and imple-menting a new set of materials from scratch Formany teachers media production was considered toobig a challenge for the first yearrsquos implementation

In characterizing the first yearrsquos curriculum itis clear that teachers used a mixture of more familiarand less familiar topics based on their experience andbackground Teachers were most comfortable withtasks involving ldquoreadingrdquo a text interpreting it dis-cussing it and responding via a written criticalanalysis Their priorities were evident in the empha-sis placed on the four focus areas They were mostconcerned about their studentsrsquo ability to analyze ad-vertising to understand how point of view was ex-pressed in various kinds of news and nonfictiontexts to appreciate the diverse array of narrativestructures in storytelling and to examine the repre-sentation of gender race and ideology in mediamessages

Research hypothesesThe faculty for the grade 11 English curricu-

lum in mediacommunications at Concord HighSchool emphasized the development of studentsrsquoreading and writing skills as well as studentsrsquo abilityto critically analyze media messages As a result

three hypotheses were put forward to measure the ef-fectiveness of the curriculum on the development ofstudentsrsquo academic skills These were generated incollaboration with the grade 11 teachers involved inthe implementation of the curriculum who were in-terviewed at the beginning of the school year abouttheir expectations for how the yearlong programwould affect student skills behaviors and knowl-edge In order to measure student skill developmentwith more precision we distinguish between skillsthat demonstrate comprehension those that demon-strate writing skills and those that demonstrate skillsof message analysis even though researchers havelong recognized the interconnectedness betweenthese skills (Langer 1995) The present study wasdesigned to evaluate the impact of a secondary lan-guage arts curriculum which was developed in oneschool district by determining its effects on stu-dentsrsquo reading listening and viewing comprehen-sion writing and message-analysis skills Thefollowing were stated as null hypotheses

H1 Media-literacy instruction does not increase studentsrsquocomprehension skills as operationalized by the abilityto identify the main idea of messages and to recall spe-cific details from three formats of nonfictionmdashprintaudio and video

H2 Media-literacy instruction does not increase studentsrsquowriting skills as operationalized by assessments of writ-ing quality and quantity spelling and usage errors

H3 Media-literacy instruction does not increase message-analysis skills involving reading listening and viewingmedia messages in print audio and video formsAnalysis skills are operationalized as the following theability to identify a messagersquos purpose and target audi-ence identification of techniques used to construct themessage identification of values and point of viewidentification of information omitted from a messageand comparison-contrast between messages using simi-lar formats

These hypotheses reflect teachersrsquo understand-ings of their work not as media teachers but asEnglish teachers Although the English 11 curricu-lum emphasized the analysis of media texts theteachersrsquo instructional priorities as reflected in theclassroom activities and assignments emphasized thedevelopment of skills of meaning making interpreta-tion analysis and composition As a result teachersput a high value on helping students strengthen theirwriting and reading skills even though the courseused texts that included not only works of literaturebut also nonfiction film television advertising andpopular culture



Research designBecause all students in the school district par-

ticipated in the instructional program at ConcordHigh School it was necessary to use a nonequivalentgroups design in order to quantitatively measure theimpact of this instructional treatment on studentlearning While such designs are common in evalua-tion research (Babbie 1998) they have been cri-tiqued both by advocates of single-subject researchand by advocates of qualitative research who pointout the limitations of the method (Kennedy 1997Richardson 1994) However nonequivalent researchdesigns are still a powerful tool for understandingthe effectiveness and impact of new instructional in-terventions (Cook amp Campbell 1979 GerstenBaker amp Lloyd 2000) In true experiments partici-pants are randomly assigned to treatment conditionsIn quasi-experiments researchers often use studentsfrom intact classes or schools as the treatment sampleand try to find a relatively comparable group of stu-dents from other classes or schools to serve as thecomparison sample Since randomized assignment totreatment groups was impossible because the entirepopulation of the school was implementing themediacommunications curriculum a comparisonsample was used from another community with sim-ilar instructional quality school size and student de-mographics Even when control and experimentalgroups are matched along key demographic variablesand other criteria selection bias remains a threat tointernal validity which limits the generalizability ofthe results However the primary advantage of thisdesign is that it allows researchers to eliminate matu-ration effects thus distinguishing between effects ofthe instruction and those of natural developmentalmaturation and growth

In the most frequently used type of quasi-experiment researchers typically assess students on abattery of pretest measures to ensure equivalenceQuasi-experimental designs are strengthened whenresearchers can prove that the groups were highlysimilar at pretest time Specialists in educationalmeasurement recommend a difference no greaterthan 025 standard deviation between the experi-mental and comparison groups on pretest variables acriterion that this research employs (National Centerto Improve the Tools of Educators 1998) Becauseof the inherent limitations of the design a quasi-experiment will never be an ideal substitute for atrue experiment regardless of how well it is plannedand conducted and no matter what the results areHowever because quasi-experiments are a way of lifefor many researchers in the field of education the re-

sults of well-conducted quasi-experiments are a valu-able contribution to research especially when usedfor exploratory research or to evaluate instructionalinnovations under circumstances when experimentaldesigns are impossible to employ (Cook ampCampbell 1979)

SampleDemographic comparison of the two commu-

nities shows a pattern of similarities and differencesin size racial gender and social class variables Datawere gathered on the entire population of 293 stu-dents at Concord High School enrolled in grade 11and on a random sample of 89 students from a con-trol school located within a 50-mile radius of thetreatment school Concord and the control commu-nity each have a population of approximately 7000families 97 white Concordrsquos per capita income isslightly lower (at US$23262) than the control com-munity (at US$24367) because Concord has agreater number of elderly citizens Students in bothsamples had a balanced proportion of males and fe-males and both groups matched the racial composi-tion of the communities

A comparison of parental occupations revealedparity between the two communities We asked stu-dents to write down parental occupations as an indi-rect measure of socioeconomic status and then codedthese using categories identified by the USDepartment of Commerce For example 27 oftreatment-group fathers and 23 of control-groupfathers are identified as book and business knowl-edge intensive (includes managerial finance legalgovernment) 18 of treatment-group and 22 ofcontrol-group fathers are identified with science andtechnology intensive jobs (includes computers engi-neering) 24 of both treatment-group and control-group fathers are identified with hands-on work(includes military construction installation mainte-nance) and 18 of treatment-group fathers and15 of control-group fathers are identified withwork that is communication intensive (includescommunity and social services education and man-agement) Because of the parallel proportions ofmothers and fathers involved in hands-on work ser-vice occupations and knowledge professions thesedata enhance our confidence that the samples whiledrawn from two different communities are similaralong key dimensions of social class

Media-use data also reveal that some differ-ences are evident between the control group andtreatment group While a greater proportion ofcontrol-group students have a computer in the home

(96 as compared with 90 of the treatmentgroup) F (1 726) = 751 p lt 001 other media-useindicators show no significant differences betweenthe control and the treatment group in the numberof televisions number of videocassette recorderscable television access and newspaper subscriptionsFamily size suggests that the students receivingmedia-literacy instruction may have a slightly higherproportion of smaller possibly single-family house-holds since the data show fewer siblings in the treat-ment group (18 for the control group and 17 forthe treatment group) but statistically significant dif-ferences in household size in the treatment group(control group M = 42 treatment group M = 40)F (1 726) = 682 p lt 01 These differences showthat the control-group students are slightly more ad-vantaged in terms of access to technology and house-hold size

The control school was also selected because ofits similarities in terms of the overall instructionalprogram and the quality of the program in Englishlanguage arts The principal of Concord HighSchool was previously an administrative leader at thecontrol-group school and recommended the schoolrsquosparticipation in the research because of perceivedsimilarities in the quality of the faculty parentalbackgrounds funding priorities in the district andthe overall administration of the school Like thetreatment group the English language arts faculty atthe control school favored heterogeneous groupingand had an outstanding reputation in the state forexcellence in achievement The control schoolrsquosEnglish 11 curriculum emphasized world literatureand like the Concord teachers the control-schoolfaculty valued a process approach to writing empha-sis on critical thinking rich discussion and collabo-rative learning Expectations for student learningwere high according to the head of the English de-partment During the testing year faculty membersat the control site were excited to be involved in pilottesting a new program of portfolio-based assessmentAccording to the curriculum coordinator for theschool there was significant enthusiasm for this newevaluation approach which the faculty had long pro-moted Differences in teacher enthusiasm can con-found results of quasi-experimental designs (Scruggsamp Mastropieri 1994) and while this research didnot formally measure teacher enthusiasm in eitherthe treatment group or the control group interviewswith teachers from both sites gave us the indicationthat faculty members were equivalent in their en-gagement with students and level of morale

Because data were collected from the entirepopulation of grade 11 students at Concord High

School the treatment sample included all studentsenrolled in the regular and special education pro-grams Because courses of study at this school wereheterogeneously grouped the sample included stu-dents with learning disabilities physical disabilitiesand impaired hearing Only students who completedthe entire battery of identical pretest and posttestmeasures (administered in September as a pretestand in May as a posttest) were included in the studyAlthough we were unable to collect data from theentire population at the control school we were ableto use a random sample which included studentswith learning disabilities physical disabilities andimpaired hearing A total of 89 students completedboth pretest and posttest at the control schoolStudents in both the control and treatment sampleswere an average age of 17 years at the start of thetesting with a range of 16 to 18 years

Research measuresThis study measured studentsrsquo comprehension

and message-analysis skills in response to three nonfiction message formats reading a print news-magazine article listening to a US National PublicRadio (NPR) audio news commentary and viewinga television news segment targeted at teenagersComprehension skills were measured after exposureto each message through a paper-and-pencil responseto open-ended questions Writing skills were meas-ured by coding a sample of open-ended response textfor word count holistic writing quality and thenumber of spelling and usage errors Analysis skillswere measured after exposure to each message withuse of paper-and-pencil measures with open-endedand checklist items to determine studentsrsquo ability toidentify purpose target audience construction tech-niques values and point of view omitted informa-tion and comparison-contrast

We adapted the procedure created by Quinand McMahon (1995) who tested the media-literacy skills of a large sample of Australian studentsto assess different skill levels in analyzing media Thisprocedure consisted of providing students with abrief nonfiction print audio video or visual mediamessage and then a set of paper-and-pencil open-ended and checklist questions about the message tomeasure studentsrsquo skills of message analysisFollowing the work of Hobbs and Frost (1999) inadapting the instrument to be completed by stu-dents we modified questions using the format of thefive critical questions in order to better structure stu-dentsrsquo demonstration of analysis skills Because of thefocus on nonfiction media in the grade 11 course



we felt it appropriate to select texts from news-magazines radio news programs and televisionnews The appendix displays the questions used forthe viewing comprehension activity

Identical test administration procedures andmeasures were used for both pretest and posttest forthe treatment and control groups The use of a writ-ten protocol ensured standardized administrationprocedures for the testing Students entered a studyhall in groups of 30 to 50 accompanied by classroomteachers who stayed in the room throughout the ad-ministration of the measures While the rooms wereapproximately the same size the study hall room inthe control school was carpeted which may have im-proved the acoustic qualities for both the listeningand viewing segments of the test administrationStudents received code numbers on the first day oftesting and all data collected in this study kept stu-dentsrsquo names confidential A female experimenter in-troduced the study and each test was implementedindividually and collected before the next test was ad-ministered Students all received the critical-readingtest at the beginning of the testing session To controlfor order effects groups received the other critical-analysis tasks in a rotated order each was collectedseparately before administering the next The admin-istration of the tests took 90 minutes

Decisions about scoring began after reviewinga sample of 40 student responses and reviewing the test responses supplied by the seven grade 11treatment-group faculty members who also complet-ed all tests Researchers created a coding protocol byfirst identifying the range of possible written re-sponses to each item The coding protocol was a de-tailed written guide to assist scorers in identifyinghow to allocate points for student responses Two ad-vanced undergraduate students who served as peerwriting coaches at their collegersquos writing center readall student responses and conducted the scoring aftera training process The studyrsquos authors guided codersrsquodecision making during the initial period of learningto use the scoring instrument A random sample oftests revealed a Cronbachrsquos alpha of interrater relia-bility ranging from 89 to 93 for items requiring thescoring of open-ended responses Coders read andscored the data blind to control treatment condition

Reading comprehensionWhile researchers have pointed out the variety

of responses to requests to identify the main idea of areading passage (Moore amp Cunningham 1986)skillful readers are able to distinguish between textu-ally and contextually important information Skillful

readers recognize features of an informational textrsquosstructure to differentiate between more importantand less important ideas (Vacca amp Vacca 1999) Tomeasure reading comprehension of an informationaltext students read a one-page article entitledldquoMosquitoes Get Deadlyrdquo from the September 51997 issue of Time magazine which was repro-duced as a black-and-white photocopy The articleconcerns the rise in encephalitis cases as a result ofinfected mosquitoes in Florida Two open-endedquestions designed to measure reading comprehen-sion asked students after reading to first ldquoput themain idea of this magazine article into sentencesrdquo Inresponding to this question they were invited toidentify the ldquowho what where when why andhowrdquo structure to explain the story For example astudent received 4 points for this answer

Scientists are worried about a possible outbreak of encephal-its [sic] a deadly disease carried by mosquitoes in centralFlorida and Long Island New York In September 1997 sci-entists had located the virus in several counties and were en-couraging citizens to take steps to prevent infections

Points were given for identifying the mosquitoes ascarriers of the disease specifying the location identi-fying the date identifying the disease as deadly andmaking reference to the need to take precautions Astudent received 2 points for writing this

Mosquitoes are once again carrying encephalitis in statessuch as Florida New York Massachusetts North Dakotaand Georgia For the first time since the outbreak in Floridain 1990

A second item asked students to describe themost memorable specific detail included in the arti-cle These responses were coded to capture the levelof specificity not the specific content of studentsrsquowriting The ability to recall specific details from aninformational text may be related to the interactionbetween readersrsquo comprehension skills and their pri-or knowledge (Pressley 1999) A student who wroteldquoIn 1990 eleven people died from the diseaserdquo re-ceived 3 points the highest score A student whowrote ldquoThe last outbreak was in 1990rdquo received 2points and a student who wrote ldquoThis happened inthe United Statesrdquo received 1 point Incoherent orblank answers were coded as zero By capturing thelevel of specificity of studentsrsquo responses this meas-ure provides an indirect measure of the interactionbetween comprehension skills and prior knowledge

Listening comprehensionStudents heard a three-minute National Public

Radio news story from the January 12 1998

broadcast of ldquoAll Things Consideredrdquo The programwas about the decision by David Brinkley to becomea spokesman for the agribusiness firm Archer DanielsMidland ldquosupermarket to the worldrdquo This piece in-troduced by Bob Edwards and performed by RemRyder was a news commentary and analysis with aclear opinion presented It used audio excerpts fromBrinkleyrsquos speeches and press releases to illustrateBrinkleyrsquos shift from respected news anchor to corpo-rate pitchman After listening students were asked toldquoput the main idea of this broadcast into sentencesrdquoand identify the ldquowho what where when why andhowrdquo structure to explain the story A second ques-tion asked students to ldquodescribe the most memorablespecific detailrdquo provided in the broadcast

Viewing comprehensionStudents viewed a five-minute news story from

Channel One (a daily satellite news broadcast pro-vided by Primedia Inc) The original TV broadcastwas in April of 1994 and it is about the devastatingeffects caused by Hurricane Andrew We selected thispiece because we wanted to ensure that the newscontent would be unfamiliar to students (neither thecontrol group nor the treatment group receivedChannel One) This video segment was identical tothe one used in Hobbs and Frostrsquos (1999) study ofthe media-analysis skills of ninth graders Two open-ended questions designed to measure viewing com-prehension used language identical to the readingand listening comprehension measures describedearlier

Writing skillsWe scored student writing by using two para-

graphs of response text which students composed inresponse to the open-ended reading listening andviewing comprehension questions Writing wasscored with a holistic writing scale a term used fortests that measure writing quality wholly through theproduction of writing (Cooper amp Odell 1977) Theholistic writing scoring system used a 5-point scalethat includes consideration of clarity coherence andsentence structure In addition scorers counted para-graph length in number of words and coded thenumber of spelling and grammatical (not punctua-tion) errors

Analysis Identification of construction techniquesStudents were asked this open-ended question

ldquoWhat techniques were used to attract and hold at-

tentionrdquo The ability to recognize and describe theconstructedness of media messages is acknowledgedas one of the central principles of media-literacy edu-cation (Aufderheide amp Firestone 1993) and is a keyfeature of literary analysis in secondary English lan-guage arts (Langer 1995) After reading a sample ofstudent responses we developed a protocol as de-scribed earlier to code student responses on a 3-pointscale Coders were provided with a list of acceptableanswers and coded for the presence of these itemsFor example in responding to the Time magazine ar-ticle a student received 3 points for writing ldquoUsingscary headline with the word lsquoDEADLYrsquo showing alarge picture of a mosquito with a ketchy [sic] sub-title explanationrdquo A student received 1 point forwriting ldquoUsed facts to scare yourdquo Additional answersidentified the use of statistics the use of humor a ref-erence to Disneyworld attendees who were affected tocreate increased identification for readers the use ofthe ldquoarms racerdquo metaphor in describing the growth ininfected mosquitoes or the punchy ending that usedsurprising facts

In responding to the television news segmentcoders awarded points for answers that included ref-erence to specific use of language imagery soundproduction values camera movement voice qualityediting graphs informative content or the use ofemotional appeals For example a student received 3points for writing ldquoThe music and the flashing pic-tures in the beginning of the broadcast kept your at-tention Watching different shots of the hurricaneand how some people reacted also captured my emo-tionsrdquo A student who wrote ldquoThe upbeat music wasdramatic and powerfulrdquo received 1 point A studentwho wrote ldquoShockrdquo received no points

Analysis Identification of point of viewStudents were asked this open-ended question

ldquoWhat values or points of view were represented inthis messagerdquo While understanding point of viewcrosses all curriculum areas instructors in Englishlanguage arts have explored this concept through theuse of a variety of pedagogical strategies (BeanValerio amp Stevens 1999 Scholes 1998 Vacca ampVacca 1999) After reviewing a sample of 40 studentresponses reviewing answers supplied by faculty andcreating a written coding protocol we coded re-sponses by allocating points for the specific identifi-cation of points of view For example a student whowrote ldquoPeople must protect themselves by beingmore careful about spending time outdoors afterdarkrdquo received 3 points the highest score for thisitem Another who wrote ldquoThis article emphasizes



the value of human life and our need to safeguard itrdquoalso received 3 points A student who wrote ldquoThedoctorrsquos point of viewrdquo received 2 points and anoth-er student who wrote ldquoMosquitoes should be killedrdquoreceived 1 point

In assessing the point of view after respondingto the television news viewing segment a student re-ceived 3 points the highest score for identifying thepoint of view of the segment by writing this re-sponse ldquoMuch of the story was given from the pointof view of young people who were affected by thestormrdquo Another student received only 1 point forwriting ldquoHurricanes are destructive dangerous andunpredictablerdquo

Analysis Identification of omissionsThis question asked students after reading lis-

tening or viewing to ldquoidentify three relevant ques-tions facts or pieces of information that wereomitted from the messagerdquo Recognizing omissionshas been seen as a vital dimension for identifyingpoint of view in an informational text (Kovach ampRosenstiel 2001) It is equally important that thisquestion indirectly measures a dimension of strate-gic higher order comprehension because in identi-fying omitted information students must be able togenerate new ideas connected to the topic Pressley(1999) described how readers with good comprehen-sion skills are strategic as they read using priorknowledge monitoring their comprehension mak-ing predictions and actively asking questionsCoders evaluated student responses on a 3-pointscale and silly incoherent or redundant questionsfacts or information received no points For exam-ple a student received 2 points for writing ldquoWhatwere the ages of the people who were killed How toprotect pets What kind of people were most atriskrdquo Even though the student identified three ques-tions her first question was determined to havemade her third question redundant and she was notawarded an additional point A student who includ-ed ldquoWhat do you do if symptoms appearrdquo wouldnot receive credit for that question because it wasspecifically addressed in the article

Analysis Comparison-contrastAfter viewing the television news segment stu-

dents were asked to compare and contrast the videoto other types of news programs including local andnational television news Comparison-contrast is afundamental strategy to promote critical thinkingand is a routine component of instruction across the

subject areas (Vacca amp Vacca 1999) Students wereasked to ldquoList three ways that this news story wassimilar to and different from local or national televi-sion newsrdquo Space was provided to list similaritiesseparately from differences and responses were cod-ed on a 3-point scale after the development of a writ-ten protocol as described above Similarities includedthe use of interviews maps and graphs anchor peo-ple addressing the viewer directly taped footage fromon location voice-over explaining visuals rapid edit-ing and dramatic statistics Differences included theuse of dramatic music a wider variety of ethnicgroups represented teenagers as anchors teens andyoung people interviewed on camera rapid editingand more depth of detail

Analysis Identification of purpose and target audience

The measurement of studentsrsquo analysis skillswas designed on the model of the five critical ques-tions For each of the three different formats ofmedia messages students completed the followinganalysis questions immediately after responding tothe comprehension questions For each of the threetypes of messages students were first asked to identi-fy the purpose of the article or audio or video seg-ment by checking all that apply of the following toinform to entertain to persuade for self-expressionto make money to teach To measure studentsrsquo as-sessment of target audience students were given achecklist of six different age-range categories (fromage 2 to over age 60) two genders five differentracial categories and five different social class cate-gories (from poor to wealthy) They were askedldquoWho was the target audience for this messagerdquo andinvited to check all that apply Concord facultymembers who responded to these test items agreedthat the categories of age and social class were themost relevant variables for the samples of writingaudio and visual messages that were used in thestudy Although in reading instruction the conceptsof purpose and target audience are commonly intro-duced at the elementary level scholars continue toshed light on the power and depth of these conceptsas sophisticated tools of analysis and interpretationfor advanced literary studies and message interpreta-tion (Scholes 1985)

Reliability and validityIn assessing the reliability of these measures we

have previously noted this studyrsquos adaptation of pre-vious research by Quin and McMahon (1995) and

Hobbs and Frost (1999) who used similar proce-dures and instruments to measure media-literacyskills The use of a variety of open-ended and check-list instruments enhances the precision of the meas-ures For example the measurement of thecomprehension and media-analysis variables offersan only moderate level of precision in capturing dis-tinctions between student responses of better andworse quality because of the need for hand scoringThe counts of paragraph length spelling errors andthe checklists for identifying purpose and target au-dience offer a higher degree of precision in produc-ing repeatable results consistently

To enhance the face validity of the media-analysis instrument we designed the instruments toresemble the five critical questions model used byteachers to strengthen studentsrsquo critical-thinkingskills The activity of reading listening to or viewinga specific media message and then responding to itby answering a set of questions is roughly parallel tothe kinds of instructional tasks that are routine in anEnglish language arts classroom Statistical evidenceto support the construct validity of these measureswill be described below when we present data to ex-amine the logical relationships between variables

Research resultsStudents in the treatment group who received

the yearlong program of media-literacy instructionin grade 11 were compared to a control group in adifferent school district who received only the pretestand posttest with no treatment The data were ana-lyzed with use of analysis of covariance (ANCOVA)with the Minitab statistical program In this analysisthe pretest scores for each variable served as a covari-ate and the posttest scores were the dependent meas-ures The analysis of covariance provides an ability tocontrol for initial differences in the two groupswhich is a characteristic typical of quasi-experimentaldesigns It can also be used with unbalanced designswhen sample sizes between groups are unequalBecause pretest variables are usually highly correlatedwith posttest variables the ANCOVA design reducesthe variability in the posttest scores that are associat-ed with the pretest scores (Keselman Huberty Lixamp Olejnik 1998) On all measures tests for normal-ity and homogeneity of the within-group regressionswere conducted to satisfy the assumptions for theanalysis of covariance

Because the acquisition of media-literacy skillshas not been theoretically conceptualized or widelymeasured by previous researchers we rejected the useof multivariate analysis procedures (MANOVA)

Because this study identifies specific analytic skillsthat are considered to be subcomponents of the larg-er domain of media-literacy skills we believe itwould be best to use univariate analysis (ANCOVA)to reveal the effects of each of the variables individu-ally an approach that could support future scholarlywork in this nascent field

Reading comprehensionStudents in the media-literacy treatment group

had higher reading comprehension scores than thecontrol group An ANCOVA showed statistically sig-nificant differences between groups in the ability toidentify main ideas F (2 727) = 2684 p lt 001Statistically significant differences in the ability toidentify details were also found F (2 727) = 1292p lt 001 A Pearson product moment correlation of27 between reading comprehension and identifica-tion of details (p lt 01) demonstrates a modest asso-ciation between the variables Table 1 presents themeans and standard deviations of reading listeningand viewing comprehension identification of specif-ic details and writing skills

Listening comprehensionStudents in the control group significantly

outperformed students in the treatment group inidentifying main ideas in a radio broadcast After con-trolling for pretest scores there were statistically signif-icant differences between groups in the ability toidentify the main idea F (2 727) = 1656 p lt 001but no differences were found between groups in theability to identify details F (2 727) = 46 p lt 49

Viewing comprehensionANCOVAs showed statistically significant dif-

ferences between control and treatment groups inability to identify main idea from a television newsbroadcast F (2 727) = 4921 p lt 001 no differenceswere found between groups in the ability to identifyspecific details from the broadcast F (2727) = 143 plt 23 For all three formats these results indicate thatmedia-literacy instruction improves studentsrsquo ability tounderstand and summarize information they learnedfrom reading listening and viewing

Writing skillsStudents in the treatment group wrote longer

paragraphs than control-group students with theANCOVA for the word count F (2 737) = 5511



p lt 001 revealing statistically significant differencesbetween groups However the ANCOVA showedthat students in the treatment condition did nothave significantly different holistic writing scoresthan the control group F (2 737)= 174 p lt 18 Apost-hoc comparison shows that although scores forholistic writing quality are higher in the treatmentgroup after controlling for variability in pretestscores no statistically significant difference remains

Studentsrsquo spelling errors decreased in bothgroups but there were large differences in the num-ber of spelling errors between groups perhaps as anartifact of the differences in length of written respons-es between groups or because of district-level differ-ences in approaches to instruction The ANCOVAfor spelling errors reveals statistically significant dif-ferences between groups F (2 737) = 906 p lt 001Treatment-group spelling errors changed from amean pretest score of 283 to a mean posttest score of225 A Pearson product moment correlation coeffi-cient of 43 between word count and holistic quality(p lt 001) and a coefficient of ndash30 between spellingerrors and holistic quality (p lt 001) provide evidenceto support the construct validity of these data Theseresults indicate that the infusion of media literacyinto the grade 11 English class did not detract fromteachersrsquo ability to support and strengthen the growthof studentsrsquo writing development

How well did students analyze nonfiction in-formational messages in written audio and videoformats The evidence from this study showed

significant differences between groups in the abilityto identify (a) construction techniques (b) point ofview (c) omitted information (d) comparison-contrast and (e) message purpose Gains in studentsrsquoskills in analyzing media messages were evidentacross the formats of print (newsmagazine) audio(news commentary) and video (news) Table 2 dis-plays the means and standard deviations for data onstudentsrsquo message-analysis skills

Analysis Construction techniquesANCOVA showed statistically significant dif-

ferences between groups in the ability to identifytechniques in reading F (2 737) = 2138 p lt 001listening F (2 737) = 7060 p lt 001 and viewing F (2 737) = 2824 p lt 001 The construct validityof this concept is supported by data that show aPearson product moment correlation coefficient of26 between identification of construction tech-niques in reading and viewing (p lt 01) a correlationof 25 between listening and reading (p lt 01) and acorrelation of 27 between viewing and listening (p lt 01) Identification of construction techniquesin reading is also positively correlated with readingcomprehension (r = 24 p lt 001) These results sug-gest that students receiving media-literacy instruc-tion were significantly better than control-groupstudents at the identification of specific constructiontechniques used to create print audio and videomessages Students increased their ability to recog-

Pretest Posttest

Control group Media-literacy treatment group Control group Media-literacy treatment group________________________________________ _________________________________________

Mean (SD) Mean (SD) Mean (SD) Mean (SD)

Comprehension of main ideaReading 224 (78) 225 (10) 201 (89) 292 (96)Listening 180 (11) 207 (97) 231 (12) 249 (14)Viewing 227 (90) 238 (10) 225 (10) 285 (93)

Identification of specific detailsReading 233 (64) 235 (74) 187 (80) 231 (72)Listening 180 (13) 189 (96) 184 (12) 188 (96)Viewing 249 (84) 248 (66) 236 (90) 251 (61)

Writing quantity and qualityLength of paragraph 44 (21) 49 (28) 36 (17) 72 (36)Holistic writing score 291 (71) 288 (88) 264 (74) 301 (75)Spelling errors 13 (15) 28 (28) 12 (11) 22 (24)

Note ANCOVA p lt 001

TABLE 1READING LISTENING AND VIEWING COMPREHENSION SKILLS IDENTIFICATION OFSPECIFIC DETAILS AND MEASURES OF WRITING QUALITY AND QUANTITY

nize how authors use techniques including suspensefear emphasis tone graphics sounds pace and se-quence in creating messages that are meaningful toaudiences

Analysis Identification of point of viewWhile both groups improved from pretest to

posttest ANCOVAs showed statistically significantdifferences in identifying point of view in readingthe Time magazine article F (2 737) = 1025 p lt001 listening to the NPR radio commentary F (2737) = 1868 p lt 001 and viewing a segment ofChannel One news on hurricanes F (2 737) =1500 p lt 001 A Pearson product moment correla-tion shows that identification of point of view isintercorrelated across media formats reading andviewing (r = 23 p lt 001) reading and listening (r =20 p lt 001) and viewing and listening (r = 11 p lt 005) In comparison with the control groupstudents receiving the yearlong program of media-literacy instruction demonstrated significantlygreater improvements in their ability to identify mes-sage values and points of view in reading listeningand viewing

Analysis Identification of omitted informationANCOVAs showed statistically significant dif-

ferences in the ability to identify omitted information

in reading F (2 737) = 4106 p lt 001 and view-ing F (2 737) = 5491 p lt 001 As mentioned ear-lier this task indirectly measures strategiccomprehension skills because the identification ofomitted information requires the ability to generatenew ideas in a connected way to information origi-nally presented in the message A Pearson productmoment correlation coefficient of 51 between iden-tification of omissions in reading and viewing (p lt001) reading and listening (r = 30 p lt 001) andlistening and viewing (r = 25 p lt 001) is an indica-tor of the construct validity of this concept Theseresults show that students in the treatment groupwere better able to identify information that wasomittedmdashby imagining unanswered questions andthinking about specific facts or other points of viewthat were not presented in the messagemdashfrom theprint magazine article and the television news seg-ment but not from the audio news commentary

Analysis Comparison-contrastANCOVAs revealed statistically significant dif-

ferences between groups in the ability to identify sim-ilarities F (1 736) = 3367 p lt 001 and differencesF (1 736) = 3940 p lt 001 For example studentsreceiving media-literacy instruction identified an av-erage of 223 similarities as compared with a meanscore of 199 for the control group A Pearson prod-


Pretest Posttest



Construction techniquesReading 136 (69) 133 (66) 110 (71) 174 (79)Listening 49 (70) 100 (77) 63 (75) 128 (81)Viewing 153 (90) 155 (83) 140 (93) 220 (86)

Point of viewReading 178 (93) 108 (97) 173 (10) 172 (10)Listening 112 (10) 110 (10) 137 (94) 150 (96)Viewing 162 (10) 139 (11) 179 (10) 193 (98)

Identification of omissionsReading 159 (13) 90 (12) 174 (13) 220 (11)Listening 180 (13) 184 (12) 189 (97) 188 (96)Viewing 101 (13) 84 (12) 154 (13) 201 (12)

Comparison- contrastSimilarities 178 (11) 125 (11) 199 (11) 223 (11)Differences 156 (10) 109 (95) 175 (11) 212 (11)


TABLE 2MESSAGE-ANALYSIS SKILLS


uct moment correlation coefficient of 54 betweenidentification of similarities and identification of dif-ferences (p lt 001) is an indicator of the internal con-sistency between these two variables In comparisonwith the control group students who received media-literacy instruction were better able to identify simi-larities and differences between the stimulus material(a five-minute newscast from Channel One onHurricane Andrew) and other kinds of televisionnews including local and national news

Analysis Identification of purposeOn the measures of identifying the purposes of

the Time magazine article on mosquitoes ANCOVAsshowed statistically significant differences betweengroups in the identification of purpose as ldquoto makemoneyrdquo F (2 737) = 1080 p lt 001 with 20 ofstudents in the media-literacy treatment group iden-tifying this as one of the purposes of the Time maga-zine article Only 13 of the control groupidentified this as one of the purposes of the messageTable 3 displays means and standard deviations forthe identification of message purpose across the threemedia formats that were tested

In identifying the purposes of the NPR radiobroadcast on David Brinkley ANCOVAs showedstatistically significant differences between groups inassessments of these purposes to inform F (2 737) =483 p lt 02 to make money F (2 737) = 295 p lt08) to persuade F (2 737) = 1804 p lt 001 andfor self-expression F (2 737) = 252 p lt 001Compared to the control group students in themedia-literacy treatment group were less likely to seethe radio broadcast as informative and more likely tosee it as persuasive self-expressive and designed tomake money For example 24 of students in themedia-literacy treatment group perceived the pur-pose of the audio news commentary as to makemoney as compared with 16 of students in thecontrol group

Students evaluated the different purposes ofthe Channel One television news segment aboutHurricane Andrew ANCOVAs showed statisticallysignificant differences between groups in these pur-poses to entertain F (2 737) = 659 p lt 01 and tomake money F (2 737) = 1049 p lt 001 One thirdof students in the media-literacy treatment group be-lieved that the broadcast was for entertainment pur-poses as compared with 18 of control-group

Pretest Posttest



ReadingTo inform 98 (10) 99 (05) 96 (18) 98 (14)To entertain 10 (21) 2 (16) 12 (32) 3 (17)To make money 9 (29) 10 (30) 13 (34) 20 (39)To persuade 12 (32) 9 (29) 12 (32) 12 (32)To teach 62 (48) 55 (49) 60 (49) 56 (49)For self-expression 2 (15) 0 (08) 8 (27) 0 (08)

ListeningTo inform 74 (43) 69 (46) 85 (35) 73 (44)To entertain 15 (36) 20 (40) 24 (43) 26 (44)To make money 13 (34) 16 (37) 16 (36) 24 (37)To persuade 34 (47) 44 (49) 29 (45) 56 (49)To teach 25 (43) 19 (39) 27 (45) 23 (39)For self-expression 38 (48) 51 (50) 30 (46) 60 (48)

ViewingTo inform 97 (15) 99 (08) 95 (21) 97 (18) To entertain 18 (38) 21 (41) 18 (38) 33 (48)To make money 10 (31) 13 (33) 16 (36) 23 (44)To persuade 13 (34) 12 (32) 11 (31) 9 (42)To teach 63 (48) 62 (50) 58 (49) 42 (49)For self-expression 10 (31) 7 (26) 8 (27) 4 (44)

Note Data are expressed in percentages ANCOVA p lt 05 p lt 01 p lt 001

TABLE 3IDENTIFICATION OF THE PURPOSES OF MEDIA MESSAGES

students Nearly one quarter of the students (23)recognized that the broadcastrsquos purpose was to makemoney as compared with 16 of control-group stu-dents An intercorrelation matrix between the read-ing listening and viewing purposes shown in Table4 provides further data to support the construct va-lidity of these measures which appear to be internal-ly consistent across media formats These resultssuggest that participation in the media-literacy cur-riculum increased studentsrsquo awareness of the eco-nomic functions of nonfiction media including newsmagazines public radio news and teen-orientednews programs

Analysis Age of target audienceIn analyzing the age of the target audience for

the Time magazine article ANCOVAs showed statis-tically significant differences between groups in theidentification of readers aged 12 to 17 F (2 737) =705 p lt 008 The data show that after receiving themedia-literacy curriculum students were less likelythan control-group students to perceive that theTime magazine article was aimed at teenagers Table5 presents the means and standard deviations acrossthe three media formats tested

In the listening activity ANCOVAs revealedstatistically significant differences between groups inidentification of age of target audience as 2- to 11-year-olds F (2 737) = 609 p lt 05 and 40- to 60-year-olds F (2 737) = 842 p lt 004 Comparedwith students in the control group students in themedia-literacy treatment group were less likely toidentify the target audience as children and morelikely to perceive the audience as middle-agedNinety-five percent of students in the media-literacytreatment group believed that middle-aged peoplewere a target audience as compared with 89 ofcontrol-group students

For the television news stimulus the treatmentgroup was more likely than the control group to

recognize that the ldquoteen focusrdquo of the Channel Onenews segment on hurricanes would be more appeal-ing to teens and less appealing to older audiencesANCOVAs showed statistically significant differ-ences between groups for assessing the audience as12- to 17-year-olds F (2 737) = 916 p lt 003 18-to 25-year-olds F (2737) = 778 p lt 005 25- to40-year-olds F (2 737) = 1791 p lt 001 40- to 60-year-olds F (2 737) = 1096 p lt 001 and viewers60 years old and older F (2 737) = 763 p lt 006As compared with the control group these resultsshow that students in the media-literacy treatmentgroup reflect adult interpretations of the target agegroups for the three different media formatsInspection of the faculty membersrsquo written responsesto the tests suggests that they strongly perceive thetelevision broadcast to be narrowly targeted to teenviewers For example none of the faculty identifiedpeople over 25 as a target audience for the televisionbroadcast As did their students faculty membersalso identified both the news magazine and the radionews commentary as aimed at a wider age rangethan the television news segment

Analysis Social class of target audienceStudents receiving media-literacy instruction

had narrower assessments of how messages were tar-geted to people of different social classes In readingtreatment-group students were less likely than thecontrol group to identify the Time magazine articleas targeted to either poor people F (2 737) = 675 plt 01 or wealthy people F (2 737) = 381 p lt 05

In listening to the radio news commentaryANCOVAs showed statistically significant differ-ences between groups in assessments of the target au-dience as poor F (2 737) = 2042 p lt 001 workingclass F (2 737) = 451 p lt 03 upper middle class F(2 737) = 709 p lt 008 and wealthy F (2 737) =473 p lt 03 Students in the media-literacy condi-tion were less likely than the control group to


Across media formats Reading-viewing Viewing-listening Reading-listening

To inform 20 02 04To entertain 01 18 03To make money 39 36 32To persuade 19 11 04To teach 22 08 26For self-expression 08 12 01

Note Pearson product moment correlation p lt 05 p lt 01 p lt 001

TABLE 4INTERCORRELATION MATRIX FOR IDENTIFICATION OF MESSAGE PURPOSE


perceive the broadcast as targeted to poor and work-ing class people For example only 25 of studentsin the treatment group identified the target audienceas poor as compared with 44 of the control groupBy contrast the control-group students were morelikely than the treatment group to identify the targetaudience as upper middle class or wealthy

In viewing the television broadcast ANCOVAshowed statistically significant differences betweencontrol- and treatment-group studentsrsquo assessment ofthe target audience in the following two categoriesupper middle class F (1 726) = 666 p lt 01 andwealthy F (1 726) = 699 p lt 008 As with the vari-ables about target age students who received themedia-literacy instruction reflect the perspectives oftheir teachers who were less likely to see the Timemagazine article as targeted to the poor more likelyto see the audio news commentary as targeted toupper-middle-class and wealthy people and less like-ly to perceive the television news story on hurricanesas targeted to upper-middle-class or wealthy peopleFor example all seven teachers identified the audionews commentary as targeted to upper-middle-classand wealthy people For the lower and upper edgesof the social class spectrum studentsrsquo conceptualization

of social class as a dimension of target audience in re-lation to different forms of nonfiction news media issubstantially different from students in the controlgroup For example because of the curriculumrsquos fo-cus on strategies for identifying target audience withtextual clues students in the media-literacy condi-tion may have recognized verbally presented clues inthe NPR audio news commentary (eg vocabularydialect pronunciation) that led them to believe thatpoor and working class people were not a primarytarget audience

Contribution of grade point averageWe were concerned about whether or not stu-

dentsrsquo ability to analyze media messages in print andvideo was a function primarily of general intellectualability or a unique dimension of the learning experi-ence We were able to obtain grade point average(GPA) data for students only in the treatment condi-tion reflecting their academic performance at boththe end of the grade 10 and grade 11 years This en-abled us to examine the relationship between media-analysis skills and overall academic performance Amedia-analysis variable was created to reflect analysis

Pretest Posttest



Reading2- to 11-year-olds 26 (44) 32 (46) 37 (48) 29 (10)12- to 17-year-olds 59 (49) 60 (48) 58 (49) 48 (50)18- to 25-year-olds 78 (41) 84 (36) 87 (33) 77 (41)25- to 40-year-olds 92 (26) 96 (19) 97 (15) 98 (13)40- to 60-year-olds 85 (35) 84 (36) 93 (24) 89 (31)60-year-olds and older 66 (47) 68 (47) 78 (41) 70 (45)

Listening2- to 11-year-olds 4 (21) 2 (14) 4 (21) 1 (10)12- to 17-year-olds 7 (26) 7 (26) 7 (26) 4 (20)18- to 25-year-olds 19 (39) 29 (45) 21 (41) 20 (40)25- to 40-year-olds 66 (47) 75 (43) 72 (45) 72 (44)40- to 60-year-olds 87 (37) 89 (31) 81 (38) 95 (20)60-year-olds and older 83 (37) 72 (44) 72 (45) 77 (42)

Viewing2- to 11-year-olds 26 (44) 35 (47) 32 (47) 23 (42)12- to 17-year-olds 67 (47) 78 (41) 69 (46) 81 (38)18- to 25-year-olds 89 (31) 84 (36) 90 (29) 76 (42)25- to 40-year-olds 89 (31) 77 (42) 83 (37) 63 (48)40- to 60-year-olds 83 (37) 69 (46) 69 (46) 56 (49)60-year-olds and older 73 (44) 60 (48) 59 (49) 48 (50)

Note ANCOVA p lt 05 p lt 01 p lt 001

TABLE 5IDENTIFICATION OF AGE OF TARGET AUDIENCE ACROSS MEDIA FORMATS

skills across the domains of reading listening andviewing This variable consisted of a summed scorebased on the eight following variables identificationof construction techniques in reading listening andviewing identification of point of view in readinglistening and viewing and identification of similari-ties and differences in television news viewing Thissummary variable had a range from 17 to 0 (M =875 SD = 34) A stepwise regression analysis wasperformed to determine how much of the variancein media-analysis skills could be explained simply byGPA In the regression design the criterion variableof media analysis is regressed first on GPA scores andthen on prepostcondition thus first removing thevariance associated with the GPA an indicator ofacademic performance before determining ifprepostdifferences in media-analysis scores are sta-tistically significant Regression analysis shows thatafter the variance due to GPA scores is removed theprepostcondition is still a statistically significantpredictor of higher media-analysis scores (R 2 = 800p lt 001) This provides further evidence to supportboth the construct validity of the media-analysisvariables and the robustness of studentsrsquo analysis skilldevelopment

DiscussionThis research examined one central question

How does media-literacy instruction integratedwithin a yearlong course in high school English lan-guage arts affect the development of studentsrsquo mes-sage comprehension writing and critical-thinkingskills Compared to the control group the treatmentgrouprsquos improvement in the ability to identify mainideas demonstrated improvement in reading compre-hension skills Longer paragraphs and fewer spellingerrors are signs of continuing development in writ-ing skills Widespread teacher perceptions that medialiteracy is not as rigorous as literature-based instruc-tion (Merrow amp Megee 1996 Tyner 1998) do notappear to be validated by the results of this studyThis research shows that media-literacy instructionembedded in a secondary-level English language artscourse can be effective in meeting traditional acade-mic goals Teachers need be less fearful of makinguse of a wider range of multimedia fiction and non-fiction texts as study objects when their primary goalremains the development of studentsrsquo skills of read-ing comprehension interpretation message analysisand writing

This study shows how specific textual-analysisskills can be acquired through classroom activities


Pretest Posttest



ReadingPoor 75 (43) 75 (43) 86 (34) 65 (47)Working class 86 (34) 92 (26) 96 (19) 83 (37)Middle class 92 (26) 96 (17) 97 (15) 97 (14)Upper middle class 89 (31) 87 (33) 94 (22) 90 (29)Rich 81 (38) 79 (40) 84 (36) 75 (41)

ListeningPoor 36 (48) 44 (49) 33 (47) 25 (43)Working class 69 (46) 67 (46) 68 (46) 52 (50)Middle class 84 (36) 86 (34) 77 (42) 85 (35)Upper middle class 83 (37) 87 (32) 77 (42) 88 (31)Rich 59 (49) 72 (44) 65 (47) 69 (46)

ViewingPoor 80 (39) 77 (41) 81 (38) 77 (42)Working class 97 (15) 94 (22) 92 (26) 96 (19)Middle class 98 (10) 96 (18) 95 (21) 97 (16)Upper middle class 89 (31) 83 (37) 81 (38) 69 (46)Wealthy 80 (39) 73 (44) 71 (45) 57 (49)


TABLE 6IDENTIFICATION OF SOCIAL CLASS ACROSS MEDIA FORMATS


that incorporate a variety of types of popular mediaAs described by Scholes (2001 p 215) ldquoa propercraft of readingmdashincluding what we learn from read-ing poems and other literary worksmdashcan and shouldbe used as an instrument for the serious study of allkinds of textual objectsrdquo Such a proper craft of read-ing involves the application of critical-thinking skillsin relation to print and nonprint texts These skillsinclude (a) identifying message design and construc-tion techniques (b) recognizing how authors expressspecific values and points of view (c) comparing andcontrasting messages with similar content (d) notic-ing when information is omitted from a messageand (e) identifying an authorrsquos purpose and targetaudience This study contributes to the field byshowing how these skills are developed through in-struction and how they operate in the context of dif-ferent media formats

Students who received media-literacy instruc-tion were more skillful than control-group studentsat identifying construction techniques used for printnews media audio and television news Studentswere able to describe specific techniques used by au-thors of different media formats to attract and holdaudience attention Tyner (1998) considered theability to recognize the constructedness of variousforms of texts the central concept in media-literacyeducation Such awareness noted Tyner is generatedas students serve ldquocognitive apprenticeshipsrdquo withteachers who emphasize the process of using activeinvestigation to unearth meaning-making processesusing the texts of everyday life making inferencesand predictions in ways that ldquomake visible to novicelearners those powerful problem-solving strategiesand heuristics that more expert readers practice flexi-bly and strategicallyrdquo (A Lee cited in Tyner 1998p 177) Using texts of which students have greatersocial or linguistic prior knowledge can help studentsmaster analytic skills that contribute to internalizingexpert reading practices

The measurement of studentsrsquo ability to identi-fy omissions and comparison-contrast as document-ed in this study contributes to the critical-thinkingliterature where scholars continue to debate the bestways to operationalize the measurement of critical-thinking skills (Ennis 1987 Yeh 2001) The abilityto identify information that is not included in a mes-sage appears to be a meaningful indicator of criticalthinking since students are required to formulatequestions about content not identified in the textThis skill is aligned with Pressleyrsquos (1999) observationabout strategic readers who use prior knowledgemonitor their comprehension make predictions andactively ask questions as they read In order to identi-

fy unanswered questions or information not includedin the text students must activate their schematicrepresentations of the subject matter and use priorknowledge to construct appropriate responsesHowever this study cannot discern which specificcomponents of instruction contributed most to thedevelopment of this skill Further research shouldmore formally examine the skill of recognizing omis-sions as it relates to other measures of cognitive infor-mation processing and textual interpretation It willbe important to determine how best to cultivate stu-dentsrsquo acquisition of this important skill in ways thatincrease the likelihood of its transfer to the worldoutside the classroom

This study finds that students who receivedmedia-literacy instruction were more likely torecognize the complex blurring of informationentertainment and economics that are present incontemporary nonfiction media Students who re-ceived media-literacy instruction appeared to have amore nuanced understanding of interpreting textualevidence in different media formats to identify anauthorrsquos multiple purposes and intended target audi-ences As Scholes (2001) pointed out while scholarshave argued about the impossibility of discoveringthe intention of an author at the same time

we must seek an authorial intention while recognizing thereare many reasons why we shall never close the gap that sep-arates us from the author The crafty reader must seek au-thorial intention knowing that what is found will never beexactly that (p 230)

Students engaged in critically analyzing media textsquickly discover how mass media texts flatter themost desirable audiences through overrepresentation(Lusted 1991 Masterman 1985) Evidence fromthis research study supports the argument put forthby Giroux and Simon (1989) and Cortes (2000)that media-literacy instruction may help learnersbetter situate themselves in sociopolitical context

This research evaluated the impact of oneschool districtrsquos initiative to integrate media-literacyinstruction into the secondary English language artscurriculum with a large sample of students Thetreatment was a program of studies integrated withEnglish language arts instruction designed by ordi-nary classroom teachers with minimal involvementon the part of scholars or experts It is important toemphasize that the instruction students received wasnot a specially designed intensive short-term in-structional program implemented by university fac-ulty or graduate students It was a course of studydesigned and implemented by regular classroom

teachers whose specialty is not media literacy butsecondary English language arts In addition whilethe teachers shared some common instructional ob-jectives texts and activities they were largely ontheir own to develop and implement the day-to-daywork of the classroom As a result this researchmeasures the impact of media-literacy instruction onstudent skills as this instruction occurs in the ldquorealworldrdquo with all the variability that exists from seventeachers teaching over 300 grade 11 students

One important contribution of this research isits approach to measuring critical-analysis skillsacross three different media formats Paper-and-pencil measures were designed that allowed studentsto demonstrate critical thinking skills that the teach-ers in the school district valued including the identi-fication of purpose target audience point of viewconstruction techniques and omissions These mea-sures were demonstrated to have social validity basedon the judgments of teachers they reflect both theinstructional priorities of the staff and an emergingconsensus from the scholarly community with inter-ests in media-literacy education One of the mostinteresting findings of this research concerns theconsistency of these skills as they were applied acrossprint audio and video formats The question ofhow critical-thinking skills learned with one mediumcan transfer to analysis tasks related to another medi-um is an important area for future research

There are substantial weaknesses to this re-search that limit the value of this study Because ofthe limitations of the research design it is impossibleto make generalizations to other instructional con-texts A nonequivalent groups design was necessaryto employ because the whole grade level was in-volved in the implementation of the treatmentHowever a nonequivalent groups design can neverrule out possible differences between treatment andcontrol groups that can contribute to observed dif-ferences in dependent variables We cannot be surethat the differences observed in student performanceare the result of an intensive educational interven-tion that explicitly used a wide range of media textswith a process of ldquoasking critical questions aboutwhat you watch see and readrdquo as an instructionalframework Selection bias remains a threat to inter-nal validity in all evaluation research using non-equivalent groups Because we have less detailedinformation about the content or processes of in-struction in the control group we must be cautiousin interpreting the results of this study Other fac-tors not measured in this study may explain someof the differences we found between control andtreatment groups For example it is possible that

students in the media-literacy treatment group re-ceived instruction in their social studies programthat improved their understanding of the concept ofsocial class This could have led to the treatmentgrouprsquos greater abilities to identify target audienceBecause the two groups are not from the same popu-lation we cannot be certain that the media-literacyinstruction played a direct role in the acquisition ofskill or if other unmeasured factors at the treatmentor control sites contributed to the improvement instudentsrsquo skills

Because the measures of writing quality andquantity were taken from studentsrsquo spontaneous on-site performance on reading listening and viewingcomprehension questions they were limited in theirusefulness Future research should make use of addi-tional naturalistic writing samples where studentshave had time for concept development and revisionThis would allow for a more complete assessment ofchanges in student writing skills that may result fromthe instructional treatment

This study also did not distinguish between theuse of a wider range of media texts in the classroomand specific instructional strategies used by individualteachers to promote reading listening and viewingcomprehension writing and critical-analysis skillsWhile all teachers in the grade 11 mediacommunications course at Concord High Schoolused a range of print audio visual and multimediatexts this study does not account for differences inteachersrsquo professional experience attitudes and inter-actional approaches may have played a critical role instudent performance Further research should exploredifferences among teachersrsquo instructional methodolo-gies for integrating media-literacy instruction withEnglish language arts Future research should help usbetter understand teachersrsquo attitudes and experiencesand the role of specific instructional methods as theyaffect the quality of student learning

As the first large-scale empirical work measur-ing the acquisition of media-literacy skills in theUnited States this research provides suggestive evi-dence that incorporating the analysis of media mes-sages into the English language arts curriculum atthe high school level can enhance literacy skills de-velopment Further work will be necessary to identi-fy the best practices that lead to the greatest increasein skills over time since it is likely that different in-structional practices can affect the development ofspecific critical-analysis skills In addition it will beimportant to measure whether the critical-thinkingskills learned in school transfer to media-consumption experiences in nonschool settings



RENEE HOBBS is associate professor of Communication in theDepartment of History and Society at Babson College where shedirects the Media Literacy Project She develops curriculum materialsand teacher education programs for Kndash12 educators with educatorsfrom school districts across the United States Her research interestsfocus on questions of how people learn from visual and electronicmedia the use of media texts and technology tools for expression andcommunication in the classroom and community media literacyeducation and learning from television news and popular culture Shecan be contacted at 213 Kriebel Hall Babson College Wellesley MA02457 USA or by e-mail at hobbsbabsonedu

RICHARD H FROST is an associate professor of Sociology at BabsonCollege where he teaches courses on research methods in thebehavioral sciences He can be contacted at the History and SocietyDepartment Babson College Wellesley MA 02457 USA or by e-mailat frostbabsonedu

R E F E R E N C E SALVARADO M amp BOYD-BARRETT O (1992) Media educa-

tion An introduction London British Film InstituteALVERMANN DE amp HAGOOD MC (2000) Critical media

literacy Research theory and practice in ldquonew timesrdquo Journal of EducationResearch 93 193ndash205

ALVERMANN DE MOON J amp HAGOOD MC (1999)Popular culture in the classroom Teaching and researching critical medialiteracy Newark DE International Reading Association

ANDERSON JA (1983) The theoretical lineage of critical viewingcurricula Journal of Communication 30(3) 64ndash70

AUFDERHEIDE P amp FIRESTONE C (1993) Media literacy Areport of the national leadership conference on media literacy QueenstownMD Aspen Institute

AUSTIN E amp JOHNSON K (1997) Effects of general andalcohol-specific media literacy training on childrenrsquos decision makingabout alcohol Journal of Health Communication 2(1) 17ndash42

BABBIE E (1998) The practice of social research Belmont CAWadsworth

BARON L (1985) Television literacy curriculum in action Journalof Educational Television 11(1) 49ndash55

BAZALGETTE C (1993) Proceedings of the 1992 UNESCO con-ference on media education London amp Paris British Film Institute Centrede Liaison de lrsquoEnseignement et des Moyens drsquoInformation (CLEMI) andUnited Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO)

BAZALGETTE C BEVORT E amp SAVINO J (Eds) (1992)New directions Media education worldwide London British FilmInstitute

BEAN T VALERIO P amp STEVENS L (1999) Content arealiteracy instruction In L Gambrell L Morrow S Neuman amp MPressley (Eds) Best practices in literacy instruction (pp 175ndash192) NewYork Guilford

BROWN JA (1991) Television ldquocritical viewing skillsrdquo educationHillsdale NJ Erlbaum

BRUNNER C amp TALLY W (1999) The new media literacy hand-book New York Anchor Books

BUCKINGHAM D (1998) Media education in the UK Movingbeyond protectionism Journal of Communication 48(1) 33ndash43

CENTER FOR MEDIA LITERACY (2001) Resource catalogRetrieved April 29 2002 from httpmedialitorg

CONSIDINE D amp HALEY G (1999) Visual messages Integratingimagery into instruction (2nd ed) New York Teacher Ideas Press

COOK T amp CAMPBELL D (1979) Quasi-experimentationDesign and analysis for field settings Boston Houghton Mifflin

COOPER CR amp ODELL L (Eds) (1977) Holistic evaluation ofwriting In CR Cooper amp L Odell (Eds) Evaluating writing (pp 3ndash31)Urbana IL National Council of Teachers of English

CORTES C (2000) The children are watching How the media teachabout diversity New York Teachers College Press

DORR A GRAVES S amp PHELPS E (1980) Television literacyfor young children Journal of Communication 30(3) 71ndash83

EISNER E (1999 May) The uses and limits of performance assess-ment Kappan Online Retrieved May 1 2002 from httpwwwpdkintlorgkappankeis9905htm

ELLSWORTH E (1997) Teaching positions Difference pedagogyand the power of address New York Teachers College Press

ENNIS RH (1987) A taxonomy of critical thinking dispositionsand abilities In JB Baron amp RJ Sternberg (Eds) Teaching thinkingskills Theory and practice (pp 9ndash26) New York Freeman

FILM EDUCATION WORKING GROUP (1999) Making moviesmatter A report of the Film Education Working Group London BritishFilm Institute Retrieved from httpwwwbfiorgukeducationresearchfewg

FLOOD J HEATH SB amp LAPP D (1997) Research on teachingliteracy through the communicative and visual arts New York Macmillan

GERSTEN R BAKER S amp LLOYD J (2000) Designing high-quality research in special education Group experimental design Journalof Special Education 34(1) 2ndash18

GIROUX H amp SIMON R (1989) Popular culture schooling andeveryday life Granby MA Bergin amp Garvey

GOLDBERG M amp BECHTEL L (nd) Adsmarts An interventioninvoking reactance to combat alcohol usage by youths Unpublished manu-script Pennsylvania State University State College

GOODY J amp WATT I (1988) The consequences of literacy In EKintgen B Kroll amp M Rose (Eds) Perspectives on literacy (pp 3ndash27)Carbondale IL Southern Illinois University

GRAFF H (1995) The labyrinths of literacy Reflections on literacy pastand present Pittsburgh PA University of Pittsburgh Press

HART A (1997) Teaching the media worldwide Mahwah NJErlbaum

HOBBS R (1994) Pedagogical issues in US media educationCommunication Yearbook 17 453ndash466

HOBBS R (1996) Expanding the concept of literacy In R Kubey(Ed) Media literacy in the information age (pp 163ndash186) New YorkTransaction Press

HOBBS R (1998) The seven great debates in the media literacymovement Journal of Communication 48(2) 9ndash29

HOBBS R (1999) Teaching the humanities in a media ageEducational Leadership 56(5) 56ndash62

HOBBS R (2001) Improving reading comprehension by using me-dia literacy activities Voices From the Middle 8(4) 44ndash50

HOBBS R amp FROST R (1999) Instructional practices in medialiteracy education and their impact on studentsrsquo learning New JerseyJournal of Communication 6(2) 123ndash148

KELLEY P GUNTER B amp KELLEY C (1985) Teaching tele-vision in the classroom Results of a preliminary study Journal ofEducational Television 11(1) 57ndash63

KENNEDY M (1997) The connection between research and prac-tice Educational Researcher 26(7) 4ndash12

KESELMAN H HUBERTY C LIX L amp OLEJNIK S (1998)Statistical practices of educational researchers An analysis of their ANOVA MANOVA and ANCOVA analyses Review of EducationalResearch 68 350ndash386

KOVACH B amp ROSENSTIEL T (2001) The elements of jour-nalism What newspeople should know and the public should expect NewYork Three Rivers Press

KUBEY R (1998) Obstacles to the development of media educationin the US Journal of Communication 48(1) 58ndash70

KUBEY R amp BAKER F (1999 October 27) Has media literacyfound a curricular foothold Education Week 19(9) 38 56 RetrievedNovember 20 2001 from httpedweekcomewewstorycfmslug=09ubey2h19ampkeywords=media20literacy

LANGER J (1995) Envisioning literature Literary understanding andliterature instruction New York Teachers College Press

LUKE C (1997) Media literacy and cultural studies In S MusprattA Luke amp P Freebody (Eds) Constructing critical literacies Teaching andlearning textual practice (pp 19ndash49) Cresskill NJ Hampton Press

LUSTED D (Ed) (1991) The media studies book A guide for teach-ers New York Routledge

MASTERMAN L (1985) Teaching the media London RoutledgeMEIER D (1996) The power of their ideas Boston BeaconMERROW J amp MEGEE M (Executive Producer amp Producer)

(1996) Media literacy The new basic [Videorecording] San FranciscoCalifornia Newsreel

MESSARIS P (1994) Visual literacy Image mind and realityBoulder CO Westview Press

MICHIE G (1999) Holler if you hear me The education of a teacher

and his students New York Teachers College PressMOODY K (1999) Children of Telstar Early experiments in school

television production New York Vantage PressMOORE D amp CUNNINGHAM J (1986) The confused world

of main idea In J Baumann (Ed) Teaching main idea comprehension (pp1ndash17) Newark DE International Reading Association

NATIONAL CENTER TO IMPROVE THE TOOLS OF EDU-CATORS (1998) Evaluation of research on educational approachesUnpublished manuscript University of Oregon Portland

NEUMAN S (1995) Literacy in the television age The myth of thetelevision effect Norwood NJ Ablex

NIXON H amp COMBER B (2001) Film and video bridge popu-lar and classroom cultures Journal of Adolescent amp Adult Literacy 44480ndash483

PRESSLEY M (1999) Self regulated comprehension processingand its development through instruction In L Gambrell L Morrow SNeuman amp M Pressley (Eds) Best practices in literacy instruction (pp90ndash97) New York Guilford

PRINSLOO J amp CRITICOS C (1991) Media matters in SouthAfrica Durban South Africa University of Natal

QUIN R amp MCMAHON B (1995) Evaluating standards in me-dia education Canadian Journal of Educational Communication 2215ndash25

RICHARDSON V (1994) Conducting research on practiceEducational Researcher 23(5) 5ndash10

ROGOW F (2001) AMLA A new national organization for medialiteracy Community Media Review 24(1) 24

SCHOLES R (1985) Textual power New Haven CT YaleUniversity Press

SCHOLES R (1998) The rise and fall of English New Haven CTYale University Press

SCHOLES R (2001) The crafty reader New Haven CT YaleUniversity Press

SCRUGGS T amp MASTROPIERI M (1994) Issues in conductingintervention research Secondary students In S Vaughn amp C Bos (Eds)Research issues in learning disabilities (pp 130ndash145) New York Springer-Verlag

SEMALI L (2000) Literacy in multimedia America New YorkFalmer

SHOLLE D amp DENSKI S (1994) Media education and the(re)production of culture Westport CT Bergin amp Garvey

SINGER D ZUCKERMAN D amp SINGER J (1980) Helpingelementary school children learn about television Journal ofCommunication 30(3) 84ndash93

TEXAS EDUCATION AGENCY (1998) Texas Essential Knowledgeand Skills Retrieved March 20 2001 from httpwwwteastatetxusrulestacchapter110indexhtml

TOBIN J (2000) Good guys donrsquot wear hats New York TeachersCollege Press

TYNER K (1998) Literacy in a digital world Mahwah NJ ErlbaumVACCA R amp VACCA J (1999) Content area reading Literacy

and learning across the curriculum New York LongmanVOOIJS M amp VAN DER VOORT T (1993) Teaching children

to evaluate television violence critically The impact of a Dutch schoolstelevision project Journal of Educational Television 19(3) 139ndash152

WATTS PAILLIOTET A amp MOSENTHAL P (2000)Reconceptualizing literacy in the media age Norwood NJ Ablex StamfordCT JAI Press

YEH S (2001) Tests worth teaching to Constructing state-mandated tests that emphasize critical thinking Educational Researcher 30(9) 12ndash17

YORK E amp AUBRY V (1999 June) Literacy in all media Cablein the Classroom Magazine 9(6) 11ndash13

Received November 27 2001Final revision received October 31 2002

Accepted November 4 2002


355

VIEWING COMPREHENSION AND ANALYSIS TESTS

APPENDIX

After viewing the news story about Hurricane Andrew answer the following questions below

1 Write a sentence or two to describe the main idea of this broadcast Use theWHO WHAT WHERE WHEN WHY and HOW structure to explain themain ideas

2 What was the most memorable information

3 Identify three relevant questions facts or pieces of information that were omittedfrom the message

4 What was the purpose of this message (check all that apply)

___ to inform ___ to entertain ___ to persuade___ for self-expression ___ to make money ___ to teach

5 What techniques were used to attract and hold your attention

6 What values or points of view were represented in this message

7 List three ways that this news story was similar to and three ways it was differentfrom local or national television news

8 Who was the target audience for this message (check all that apply)

___ 2- to 11-year-olds ___ men___ 12- to 17-year-olds ___ women___ 18- to 25-year-olds___ 25- to 40-year-olds ___ poor people___ 40- to 60-year-olds ___ working-class people___ 60-year-olds and older ___ middle-class people

___ upper-middle-class people___ wealthy people

___ Whites___ Blacks___ Hispanics___ Asians___ Other

331

Students who participated in a required yearlong Grade 11 English mediacommunication course that incorporat-ed extensive critical media analysis of print audio and visual texts were compared with students from a demo-graphically matched group who received no instruction in critically analyzing media messages A nonequivalentgrouprsquos design examined studentsrsquo reading comprehension writing skills critical reading critical listening and crit-ical viewing skills for nonfiction informational messages Results suggest that media literacy instruction improvesstudentsrsquo ability to identify main ideas in written audio and visual media Statistically significant differences werealso found for writing quantity and quality Specific text analysis skills also improved including the ability toidentify the purpose target audience point of view construction techniques used in media messages and the abil-ity to identify omitted information from a news media broadcast in written audio or visual formats

Measuring theacquisition ofmedia literacyskills

Un grupo de once estudiantes participoacute en un curso anual de grado 11 sobre medios y comunicacioacuten en ingleacutesque incorporoacute un extenso anaacutelisis criacutetico de los medios en textos impresos y audiovisuales Este grupo se comparoacutecon un grupo demograacuteficamente similar que no recibioacute instruccioacuten en anaacutelisis criacutetico de los medios Mediante undisentildeo de grupos no-equivalentes se examinaron la comprensioacuten lectora las habilidades de escritura la lecturacriacutetica la audicioacuten criacutetica y las habilidades de observacioacuten criacutetica de mensajes informativos no de ficcioacuten Los resul-tados sugieren que la instruccioacuten en anaacutelisis criacutetico de los medios mejora la habilidad de los estudiantes para iden-tificar ideas principales en medios impresos o audiovisuales Se hallaron tambieacuten diferencias estadiacutesticamente sig-nificativas en la cantidad y calidad de la produccioacuten escrita Asismismo mejoraron las habilidades especiacuteficas deanaacutelisis textual incluida la habilidad para identificar el propoacutesito la audiencia el punto de vista las teacutecnicas deconstruccioacuten usadas en los mensajes de los medios y la habilidad para detectar informacioacuten omitida en una trans-misioacuten de noticias en formato escrito o audiovisual

Midiendo laadquisicioacuten dehabilidades dealfabetizacioacuten atraveacutes de losmedios

Elfte Klasse Schuumller die an einem einjaumlhrigen Pflichtfach in Media-EnglischKommunikation der 11 Klasse teil-nahmen welches ausfuumlhrliche kritische Media-Analyse von Druck Audio und visuellen Texten einschloszlig wur-den mit Schuumllern einer demografisch ebenbuumlrtigen Gruppe verglichen die keine Anweisungen zum kritischenAnalysieren von Mediamitteilungen erhielten Ein nicht equivalenter Gruppenraster untersuchte LeseverstaumlndnisSchreibbefaumlhigung kritisches Lesen kritisches Zuhoumlren und Faumlhigkeiten kritischer Meinungsaumluszligerung beiInformationen von Tatsachenberichten Die Ergebnisse lassen darauf schlieszligen daszlig Medienunterricht im Schreibenund Lesen die Faumlhigkeit der Schuumller zum Erkennen wesentlicher Ideen der schriftlichen audio- und visuellenMedien verbessert Ebenfalls fanden sich statistisch bedeutende Unterschiede beim quantitativen und qualitativenNiederschreiben Bestimmte Textanalysefaumlhigkeiten verbesserten sich gleichzeitig einschlieszliglich der Faumlhigkeit ausden genutzten Mediamitteilungen Zweck Zielzuhoumlrerschaft Standpunkt Satz-Sprachkonstruktionstechniken zuidentifizieren und die Faumlhigkeit unterdruumlckte Informationen beim Ausstrahlen von Nachrichtenmedia inschriftlichen audio oder visuellen Formaten zu identifizieren

Messen desErwerbs vonMedia Schreib-und Lese-Erkenntnissen

ABSTRACTS

332




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Documents

Measuring the acquisition of media-literacy skills€¦ · While such approaches to literacy appear to ... K– 12 education, some literacy educators see much to gain in rejecting