To what extent can MOOCs impact on the understanding of media literacy for New Zealand Intermediate aged teachers and students.

Shem Banbury – Mindlab Inquiry 2019

Step 1: Describe the data you have collected

The key to ensuring relevant data is collected is making sure that data collecton within an inquiry is planned and systematic.  Earl and Timperley (2014) highlight that that evidence must be ‘fit-for-purpose’. This is to ensure that an accurate representation of the situation being evaluated and be available when decisions are being made’ (p. 17).

I used Microsoft forms to collect quantitative and qualitative data.  Students took part in a pre MOOC survey and then another after they had completed the online course. The quantitative data asked students to rate their understanding of Media Literacy and also some questions about the easy and practicality of the course I made.
I also gathered qualitative data with the following questions. 
1.      Has your understanding of the term ‘media literacy’ improved? Give us an example.
2.      In your words what is ‘media literacy’?

Step 2: Explain how you are analysing your data

I collected two sets of data from one group. The first set of data was prior to taking the test and the second was following. The majority of students that supplied data were from my class, however, I also had a small number of students, 24 in total, from around New Zealand complete the survey. After collecting the quantitative data I then analysed it and graphed the results using Microsoft Excel.

MEDIA LITERACY
At the start of the inquiry 70% of students did not believe Media Literacy was important to their learning or did not know what it was. After completing the MOOC this number was 22%.

Prior to completing the course 93% of students didn’t know what the 5 questions of Media literacy were. Following the course all of the students knew about the five questions.

Through the survey I also collected Qualitative Data through the following questions in bold.
Has your understanding of media Literacy improved?
Yes because i didn’t even know what media litracy meant and what it was.
Yes because this website gave me an idea about media literacy. Before this website I didn’t even know any of the things I know today.
What have your learnt through this course?
I have learnt is that Media is a form of communication that is delivered to large groups of people.

With the qualitative data I attempted to code, then quantify, the results from students to try and make sense of their comments.
Coding is a technique to sort and identify categories in data to capture patterns within texts (Babione, 2014). After doing this it was remarkably to see the difference. The term media literacy was used 47% more in the post survey than it was in the pre MOOC survey. Furthermore, I suspect that the 8 times it came up in the pre survey were more students just using it than really understanding its context.

USING MOOCs FOR ONLINE LEARNING
I also collected data on what students thought of the MOOC that I had made.
67% of students enjoyed using the MOOC for their learning.
Students gave the website a 6.5 out of 10 rating for ease of use.

One disappointing aspect to the data collection was the lack of participants that I received from outside my school. The idea of a MOOC is that is available to a wide variety of people in different locations. For whatever reason this didn’t happen and the uptake from teachers and students from New Zealand was not as great as I would have liked.

Step 3: Reflect on your evidence so far

The data that I have collected shows that the majority of the students who took the MOOC, and took part in my inquiry, made significant movement in their understanding of Media Literacy. 

The data shows that students have made significant gains in their understanding of what media literacy is and importantly they understand the steps they can use as students to be media literate. This is exciting and both the quantitative and qualitative evidence shows that this Inquiry has been beneficial in achieving the goal of using MOOCs increase understanding of media literacy for New Zealand Intermediate aged teachers and students.

My next step in this area is to spend time on developing my website to a higher quality, engage with more teachers and then offer some new courses for New Zealand students.

REFERENCES
Muijs, D., Kyriakides, L., Van der Werf, G., Creemers, B., Timperley, H., & Earl, L. (2014). State of the art–teacher effectiveness and professional learning. School effectiveness and school improvement, 25(2), 231-256.

Babione, C. (2015). Practitioner Teacher Inquiry and Research. USA: John Wiley & Sons. (e-copy available in Unitec library).

Microsoft Corporation. (2012). 21st Century Learning Activity Rubrics. Retrieved from ITL Research: https://education.microsoft.com/GetTrained/ITL-Research

Ministry of Education. (n.d.). Te Kotahitanga in-class observation tool. Retrieved from Te Kotahitanga: tekotahitanga.tki.org.nz/content/download/3173/20194/file/Module+4.p