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).
No. Mitochondria is the powerhouse of the cell.
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.
My high school had access to a couple of the major academic publication databases, so we definitely learned the fundamentals.
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.
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).
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Qwerty
Not in 'merica it don’t!
So many people I’ve met don’t have a clue about critical thinking/reasoning.
Yep. Did a bunch on it. Graduated in 2009ish in a small, rural town.
No.
Only the absolute basics.
Yes, but not enough that you couldn’t ignore, fail to understand, or miss it.
