Pupils need to develop critical thinking skills

A Virginia national school teacher contends that children need help to develop critical thinking when it comes to media influence.

Kate O’Connell, a teacher at St Mary’s National School, has had her research dissertation recognised in a collection of education papers published by Hibernia College to showcase key research works undertaken by graduates from its Post-Primary and Primary Education programmes.

“We are living in an age now with false information, false news,” begins Kate whose primary degree was in English and Philosophy in Maynooth.

Even beyond the false information spread about Covid vaccines, she notes the unreliability of media had already gained the global public’s attention.

“If we think back to the US election, there was so much false information which can cause so much trouble. It can be hard to decipher what’s true and what’s not true,” she says.

Kate’s research for her Masters in teaching explored an area where there was minimal work undertaken in an Irish context.

“There was very little information on the extent children are influenced by the media. I looked at research done in other countries, Sweden, Finland, America.”

The core of her qualitative research involved interviews conducted with five national school teachers from across County Cavan, in urban and rural settings. They taught pupils ranging from senior infants up to sixth class.

“Most of them used the word ‘heavily’ when describing the extent of media influence on children,” reports Kate. By media she included everything from adverts to YouTube and social media.

“They [the teachers] found it in everything - they found influence in the clothes they wear, the words they use, the way they act in class, the games they play, even the foods they eat. They are noticing it all the time with everything.

“Even the jobs they want to be when they are older. They said before children wanted to be a doctor, a teacher, a nurse, a builder; now it’s a Youtuber. And that would be a common consensus across their age group”

Having established that in the experiences of the small pool of sample teachers, that children are absorbing information from media, she sought to establish whether they had the skill set to assess what weight to give that information.

“The focus of the research is really about is teaching children the skills to deal with misinformation and false news when they approach it.

“In older classes and when they go to secondary school, and as they become adults they will be accessing so much false news and disinformation. It is teaching them the skills to best decipher that and be able to temper the media influence and be able to recognise misinformation. ”

The teachers say the pupils generally took the information on at face value: “If I see this, it must be true, or it must be the right way to be.”

Kate hopes that through media literacy training, the pupils can better distinguish reliable information from misinformation: “Because my favourite Youtube star or TikTok star is saying this or doing this, it doesn’t mean it’s true.”

She wants to arm them with the skillset to confront misinformation.

“Media literacy is enabling children to become critical thinkers, and to be able to think critically in relation to media.”

She noted many of the teachers she spoke to were not familiar with the term “media literacy” and stresses there is a shortfall in media literacy education which must be addressed. How it is addressed is seemingly important. Her dissertation’s literary review showed that the leading researchers in this area have emphasised the need for media literacy to have its own subject, not simply taught as an aside. Kate explains that the teachers she interviewed would engage with media in a limited sense, maybe as one topic in a subject such as SPHE (Social Personal and Health Education).

She also has an innovative suggestion to help address this shortfall and promote media literacy in schools.

“We have a Green Flag initiative, so the introduction of a flag initiative for media literacy might stimulate an interest in the area for teachers and raise an awareness.”

Kate acknowledges her year long research was mounted on a small scale. As such she recommends that a much more comprehensive study is required to delve into media literacy. She hopes that by having her research published, this will encourage other academics to pursue the topic.

“I’m so proud and so happy that my research is out there and it might draw attention to how important a topic media literacy is.”

Describing Kate’s research as ‘thought-provoking and important to the continued advancement of educational practice in Irish schools’, Dr Mary Kelly, Academic Dean at Hibernia College, said: “We are proud to showcase Kate’s work as part of a collection of key research issues that permeate Irish education today.”

The journal is available in print and online through the Hibernia College website.