Implementation and Evaluation of a Media Literacy Skills Curriculum: An Action Research Study

The literature highlights the significance of media literacy instruction in pre-service teacher education period, but there are few attempts to develop and implement curricula to this end. This action research study aimed to report the steps to adapt ‘the media literacy skills curriculum design’ for pre-service teachers, which was developed for face-to-face education environments, to an online learning management system in line with emergency remote teaching amid Covid-19 pandemic, and report the results of curriculum evaluation. The study adopted ‘The Curriculum Development through Action Research Model’. The participants were pre-service teachers at an education faculty of a state university in Turkey. The quantitative data were collected through Media Literacy Skills Scale and qualitative data were collected using several forms, rubrics, and reflection tools. The study revealed that the implementation of the media literacy skills curriculum had a strong positive effect on pre-service teachers’ levels of media literacy skills. The study also revealed changes in pre-service teachers’ perceptions of media and media literacy, interactions with media, as well as certain areas for curriculum development in terms of contents, teaching-learning experiences, and assessment components of the curriculum. The study discusses the results and offers implications for media literacy education in pre-service teacher education.