Did your basic education (i.e. pre-college/university) cover proper research skills and media literacy?
I'm sure this will vary for many people depending on their schools, where/when they were taught, and the like, so I'm interested to see what others' experiences have been with this.
I'm also curious about what resources some have used to learn better research skills & media literacy (and found useful) if their school didn't adequately teach either (or they may have whiffed on it at the time).
Yes in the 2000s on primary school we were taught about search engines and the internet. Our classes covered how to find information, types of searches and to be skeptical of information sources. Intermediate and high-school taught everything on the internet was wrong and not to use it.
After ~7 years of book reports and essays I’d hope you’d run across at least one teacher that taught you the basics of how to reference things and not plagiarise – where I grew up.
Qwerty
So I’m going to say no but in a way different from others here.
Technical details like libraries, even search engines, sources, quoting and citing … sure, these were at least touched on if not covered well enough.
But as someone who has gone on to do actual research at an academic level, I’d say the essential challenge of the task wasn’t even touched. Which is getting to the bottom of a question or field, exploring the material on said topic and then digesting and synthesising all of that. Some may hit this in undergrad depending on the degree, and it’s tricky work to do well and at an advanced level.
From what I’ve seen, the ideas and techniques required aren’t covered early on at all. Now it may be rather challenging at an early educational level, but I’d bet you it’s possible but undesirable because it’s hard to grade and takes a long time.
Thing is, I’d suspect trying to get practiced at that kind of work would actually be beneficial. You start to get insight into what it means to know things and to work things out. What it means to ask questions that aren’t common or not immediately answerable by Wikipedia (I recall realising in my masters that Wikipedia no longer had any utility for my research, like at all) and how there are different domains and sources and levels and techniques of both knowledge and uncertainty and mystery. Whether a young student is good at this or gets far at it, trying it for a bit and seeing the process could be valuable for everyone.
Without having gone on to do actual research, but with at least undergrad completed, I'm inclined to agree. Despite having completed undergrad, even it left me wondering a fair amount how much I'd just been a terrible student or how much my education had somehow managed to sort of gloss over or speed over rather critical research skills to develop.
Sure, I knew how to search for info and kind of weigh the sources, as some others have noted, but the more involved work like you describe? Not so much, and I'm fairly confident it was as much to do with the curriculum as it was to do with the limited time each class/course had to work with (plus accounting for the fact you'd also be muddling through multiple other classes/courses), which wouldn't necessarily even permit for assignments that would have one digging in and really researching thoroughly.
Yep, agree, and had the same feeling through undergrad.
If it helps, I've had the same feeling through post-grad too! The whole world is on timelines and productivity goals these days ... no one is allowed the time to just explore and see where things take them.
The recent Nobel Prize for medicine (for the mRNA vaccine) being a fairly glaring indictment of how much it has maybe taken academia off course. For example, here's a psychology professor trying to address the issue on mastodon. Another example I noticed was that any older paper I'd read, though the technology and understanding (in some cases) was obviously older and less advanced, would obviously be of a better quality compared to modern papers. The main difference was that older papers were more likely to report on the story of an investigation. There's be assides about things they'd checked or doubts they'd had etc. Modern papers tend to lean more into "marketing" and feel more rushed and manufactured. Any colleague in similar areas to me that I've spoken about this has shared similar feelings. Academics are pressured to publish at nearly a breakneck speed and none of them like it. Not because it's got them working hard (though it does have that effect through secondary affects because of just how many things academics have to do to keep the system running, including peer-review), but because they aren't allowed to work as hard as they'd like on solving problems and actually finishing projects.
Back to the topic of education ... yea I agree that curriculum and its modularity is a big part of the problem. Bottom line is, along with the above, education is manufactured now, not cultured. Allowing a student to try and inevitably fail and struggle at actual research and asking their own or at least not spoon fed questions doesn't fit neatly into the current design philosophy of education.
Thing is, I'm not sure there is much more of a point to education than allowing and helping someone learn and experience this process. It's as simple as the "teach a man to fish" aphorism. All of the assessment and metrics driven design of education and curriculum to make sure someone is capable of knowing something for a short window of time is a rather superficial view of what being educated is about. With AI, chatGPT etc, the specter haunting academia and the hollowness of its value proposition is looming very large IMO, but few who are around academia or who genuinely found it valuable or value it as part of the self-worth want to question it.
I'm over 40 and while I was taught to do research on a Microfische, I was regularly told not to trust anything on the internet.
As for media literacy, no way in hell. Especially after the Telecommunications Act of 1996 started allowing mass consolidation of media empires. In the 1980's, majority of US media was owned by around 80 companies, in the modern era, it's five that own the majority of the US media landscape.
You say the name "Marshall McLuhan" or even "the medium is the message" and you get confused fucking looks.
Eh, they certainly tried to teach it, but teachers were scared to give assignments that required information they didn't provide ahead of time.
So, there was never a need to actually apply it, to realize that, hey, if I don't know something, I should absolutely crack open the internet and read up on whatever I can find.
We took those classes. They were very introductory though (how to cite, what are good sources, how to write a research paper, history of media, some basic media theories, etc).
Only the absolute basics.
Yep. Did a bunch on it. Graduated in 2009ish in a small, rural town.
We were taught basic research skills all throughout highschool, how to find information, how to read and write academic papers and how to cite things properly.
As far as media literacy goes, but our social studies classes always opened with a discussion about the day's news stories as well as the bias of the source it came from.
But I think the class that really opened my eyes the most was a unit in 9th grade English where we discussed the language of advertising. In that class they taught us how anything you see in an ad has to be technically correct as to not run afowl of false advertising laws, but is very often misleading. After that, I started to spot those techniques everywhere, and not just in ads. Those few weeks were foundational to the way I approach critical thought now.
Yes, but not enough that you couldn't ignore, fail to understand, or miss it.
GCSE (14-16 year olds) history is (supposed to) teach the various types of source (primary, secondary, etc.), and consideration of reliability, bias, etc.
For the sciences, we were required to use reasonable sources (perhaps not direct papers and journals, but certainly reasonably reputable outlets that discuss their findings.
At college level (16-19), I honestly don't remember this being a requirement (although I did drop history). Tests and assignments were mostly based on class teaching.
At university level, it goes full force after the first year. Everything you assert, you have to back up, using the university's preferred referencing system.
This is all to my fallible recollection.
I remember having to do a research project in middle school. We all got shuffled into the computer lab to start researching a topic to ultimately write an essay or presentation or some such on. The problem for me was that I was kind of blindsided by it.
I all of a sudden had to not only learn how to use a scholarly database to find good information on a topic, but had to pick a topic as a preteen that was interesting and had information available to digest. I don't remember what I ended up doing.
There were other instances of this in my pre-university education though that went better, with more constrained topics or scope.
I went to high school in the 90s, so no. Well… we learned proper research, but not in any modern sense. We learned how to use a card catalog, microfiche, and a library. I had to teach myself how to use online and other digital sources.
Random American here. Research skills? Yes, definitely. My high school had access to a couple of the major academic publication databases, so we definitely learned the fundamentals. So many essays.
Media literacy? Nope, not in the slightest. Would’ve been nice though.
I think we’re severely lacking in media literacy, financial literacy, and civics in general. A whole generation with a strong background in those things at an early age would do wonders for society.
Was this a public high school? I ask as I know many academic publication databases tend to have notorious costs associated with them, albeit maybe they're more relaxed than I had realized for schools.
Yeah, it was public. This was a while back though, more than two decades ago, so it was the relatively early days of those big online databases. I vaguely remember my school being part of some early trial, though I could be pulling that out of nowhere.
Yes. In highschool (Australia) I took Modern History in years 11-12, which was taught by a teacher who really cared about the subject. With a subject like that of course media literacy, arguments, hypothesis's, source accuracy, claims, bias, and everything related to research skills was relevant. It was essentially a practice run for any political science course you would take at university, as the class revolved around submitting one big assessment item each term which was thoroughly researched. I chose the easy route every time and just wrote essays, but if you were the creative type you could make something else to showcase understanding.
During one semester we did a small trip to a university campus in the city so we could gather resources for one of our projects while not hitting any paywalls.
Of course being an elective senior subject in rural Queensland it was only about 15 of us in my class, where my cohort at large was 100 students in total (once people dropped out in Year 10).
One teacher literally showed us how to use Libgen and SciHub for our research. Media literacy no.
Secondary education did a pretty good job, but I'd say that was more on the teachers than the curriculum. I got very lucky in that regard. My community college for my BTEC, same, the one teacher who taught me how to properly write reports and assignments was really good at ensuring we cited everything properly, and gave extra marks.
I can't say for sure they were proper research skills but they were some kind of research skills. I'm also not entirely sure what media literacy entails so I'm going to guess that no that was never part of the curriculum at my university.
So I'm from Europe, and I remember being drilled in the importance of sources (i.e. use of research papers and primary sources when available, no wikipedia, etc.) as well as theory and methodology, how to cite and paraphrase properly, checking who wrote/created a text/media and what bias it might have, etc., but not how to actually find, navigate and use databases, analyze media, documents and information, etc. At university it was basically assumed that we'd already know everything we needed and we mostly just got a refresher on research methodology.
Years layer i studied a second BA in Mexico, and (ironically, being a "third world country") had to take three courses on research (documentary, qualitative and quantitative), during which we went in depth into research method and theory, different research databases, types of sources, media types, critical evaluation of sources, etc., as well as hands-on use of all of them. In addition, there were three courses on thesis research and writing to put it all into real practice, with a graduation thesis as end product.
That said, the teachers were much stricter in evaluating proper referencing and citation in Europe; oftentimes minor errors would have them significantly reduce your score, and so students were much more careful. In Mexico, the teachers accepted anything even remotely resembling APA style because anyone could argue they were using a prior/newer edition and get away with it, and at least one of my classmates got suspended for plagiarism while three others got off with warnings.
Geez we were taught media literacy in grade 6 (Canada).
My pre-uni ed was mostly in the 90s, here in Brazil. I was taught proper research skills since the 4th grade of the primary school (10yo), but in a heavily simplified way: you were expected to check the library and make a simple paper-like assignment about some random topic. The assignment had to follow intro, then "main", then conclusions, then bibliography. Then as the school years progressed those requirements became more and more refined, to the point that a good 3rd grade student in the secondary school (17yo) was supposed to be able to write a simple technical paper. ("supposed to" is key here - most couldn't anyway. Including me.)
Media literacy? Nope. Can't have kids thinking by themselves, right, what if they become questioning adults *rolls eyes*.
I'm in my mid 40s, high school in Missouri. I wouldn't say they taught media literacy, and despite having a computer lab with the internet, it wasn't considered.
Research was finding sources to cite for a paper and was a big chunk of the grade in English one year. They did cover what were considered reputable sources, but that meant published non-fiction, news reports, and maybe firsthand accounts (consider the source reputation). They seemed to assume we knew the difference between, say, a real newspaper and a tabloid, or the difference between Channel 5 News and Jerry Springer. The idea that the NY Times or Channel 5 News might have bias in how they presented things, and in what they chose to present, wasn't considered at all.
Since this was taught in English, it was much more about using proper citations, not full plagiarism, and writing persuasively. I know I couldn't find enough actual books on my topic in the school or public libraries, so I padded my reference list with the list the encyclopedia used. It worked fine.
To be fair, I do still use questions i learned from that research paper to evaluate info. am I seeing the same info across multiple sources, including high quality ones? can I trace it to an original source, and how much do I trust that source? can I find several high quality, independent sources for a particular thing?
Your last paragraph is such an important one. One of the things I see most is people citing a source, but then the sources their source cites may be dubious at best. It's so important to be able to keep going backwards in sourcing. Where did every little piece of information come from? Humans make mistakes, sometimes data can get misunderstood or corrupted over time. A mistake in the past may result in printing a falsehood that's generally accepted as true in the future. People often struggle following a path of information gathering beyond the first few steps. I do think that traces back to, like you said, we were taught what were reputable sources (NYT vs National Enquirer) but never given any knowledge that their might be bias even in our trusted sources. So many people, instead of considering where the information is sourced when it comes to outlets with a "reputable" history, just stop at "it was in the New York Times" as if they haven't had their share of scandals (like when they sat on information the Bush admin was illegally spying on US citizens for over a year at the request of the Bush admin).
I think, unfortunately, it's also why some people turn to really ridiculous sources, because they're just smart enough to see the bias in legacy institutions, but they don't have the media literacy to accept what they can research as true from legacy media but also to be skeptical and looking for evidence for what is presented, instead of treating is as fact. This, I think, has fueled the rise in conspiracy theories, from people who know everyone is lying to them, but lack the ability to be able to parse or deal with that in any healthy way. Yes, there is a lot of bias in legacy media, but turning to online media grifters who are selling you survival kits isn't the healthy or literate solution.
I think there's a human bias towards certainty, to believing in true facts. research is work, and when it undermines personal certainty, there's an urge to just go with whoever does seem to be most certain. if you can't be sure of the facts on a personal level, go with the guy who is loudest and most certain. and because people seeking to relay truth will make room for doubt, conspiracy theory guy wins.
understanding probability helps here - if 90% of climatologists are 90% sure of climate change, their doubt doesn't make climate hoax guy right. the podcast 538 covers politics, but goes into polling theory, statistics, and probability in ways that make it easier for me to understand and apply in other areas.
My undergrad helped with that. There was a required class that included writing different types of papers, including a research paper, visiting the librarian to learn about sources and how to make a bibliography, cite sources within a paper, not plagiarize someone. I believe I went over this stuff in highschool but I'm certain I had a college course that focused on this, as well. I believe it was called "graduate writing assessment requirement" and required for me.
Yeah, I had media literacy sprinkled in starting as early as I could read.
I remember an early exercise. There were a bunch of statements I had to identify as either fact or opinion. I incorrectly said "Going to the beach is fun" is a fact.
Fast forward to high school where I had a teacher who took more points off for writing statements without robust sources. And in university where they were on a plagiarism rampage to make sure every word was properly attributed.
It is a compulsory part of the Science and the English courses in NSW High School (age 12-18) education. Usually taught in the stage 5 section (age 14-16).
The definition of plagiarism, how to correctly bibliographise your work, and how to find good resources is essential for a good mark in any high school subject with a research assessment.
No.
Yes, not that I paid attention or did the assignments when we were supposed to practice it. But I learned it probably 6 of my 12 years of pre-college school.
Mine did, but the media literacy stuff is all hopelessly out of date at this point.
It's been a while for me. I remember school covered a bunch of basics. What is this text trying to say outside of its explicit wording? I don't remember it going into sources or framing much, but I also did pretty badly at it in school. A lot of students are checked out most of the time. I don't really remember anything to do with the preponderance of media (e.g. If NYT, CNN, MSNBC, and FOX all agree on something, how will this be perceived by the public, how small will your voice be if you say "But the UN sent investigators and found no evidence of chemical attacks" etc). We certainly didn't explore, say, Chomsky's reading of how the media industry is structured, even though I think most students at my school would be capable of absorbing the information.
The thing is, I think people often have the skills for media literacy if it's a message they disagree with. They can question sources and motivations, peel apart euphemisms etc. But most of the time they are insufficiently motivated, especially with messaging they agree with. Or they want to agree with.
Yes. Though not for everyone. People who were actually interested in getting an education were put in special classes. People who didn’t give a shit weren’t in these classes, graduated anyway, but didn’t really learn much.
Not in 'merica it don't!
So many people I've met don't have a clue about critical thinking/reasoning.
Mine did, granted I went to a pretty nice school and was in "Honors" English and Social Studies (which meant that you did the normal English homework during summer, did a grade higher during the school year, and then did college level in junior/senior year). Pretty much every one of my teachers forced us to cite an actual book from an actual library every time we wrote an essay.
Yea, we spent time from at least 6th grade in the library using card catalogs, index cards, and learning not to use an encyclopedia or the Internet for any sources. This was in the 90s. Research papers were a big thing in highschool. I don't think media literacy was taught, because I'm not really sure what that means.
What is college? Is it employed for middle school or high school? If so then no.
And if someone who didn't get such eduction thinks they have the tool to distinguish between false and true, they are delusional. The more verified knowledge someone has, the more that person develops their ability to manage information and find if it's bad or good. Tho that doesn't mean that everyone has equal training or capacity in doing so.
If college is employed as a synonym of university, then kinda yes? Tho for myself I wasn't really trained into getting the right sources. However the knowledge gained from the years of eduction allowed me to somehow manage a bit the informations.
However, I don't think I would have been able to really avoid bad information without getting the university training, where I also learned sources and reputable sources.
Even now it can be sometimes hard to get a good source to check. And often for random info I'll forget on the Web I don't even bother.
It's for post-high school education, also referred to as higher education in my area. Generally they're synonymous with universities in that respect where I'm from, and while I'm sure there may be some slight difference between the two (probably more distinct in other areas), I don't know what they are exactly.
In France and other countries around speaking French, college is middle school. 11-15y old something like that.
According to Wikipedia, in most countries it's high-school or secondary education.
In the US and maybe other it seems to be a synonym of university.
Here in Australia it can be used for post-high school vocational education, but it can also be used for residential premises attached to a university (but not the university itself). Of course, there's some American language import here.
I don't think the term media literacy was used but we did learn literary criticism and how to formulate arguments in formal debate. We covered The Onion and adbusters, and we talked about identifying bias. In history class we learned the difference between primary and secondary sources and my history teacher was the first person I ever heard say "follow the money " to understand a person's motivations. We also had a theory of knowledge class which taught some basics of philosophy.
not long before dropping out in the 90s in a conservative, backwards, rural area -- the need to cite sources and do extensive research, and have a willingness to have my ideas challenged, was something I grokked from high school. i don't expect much from from West Virginia, but I didn't then either.
the amount of idiots i met in college made me wonder how they were admitted
Universities are there to make profits first and educate maybe second