Thinking+Like+a+Researcher+-+Kelly+and+Angela

__Variables__ vocabulary (media literacy terms) usage family involvement dream job selection

__Research Questions__ 1. How media literate is each student? (The more thorough of an answer the more media literate a student is.) We would look at each open-ended question and find how many "media literacy" words are used. This would help us to gauge how media literate each student is. This information would be interesting when compared with other variables. For example, even just using the data to compare how media literate each student is compared to what "academy" they are in.

2. How does media usage compare with media literacy? (There is no correlation between media usage and literacy.) We would see if there is a correlation between usage and literacy. This could show if more usage just means more understanding of the media or more usage means they believe more of what they see/hear/read and are less literate. This would be interesting because we think a lot of people may try to make predictions about how media literate a student is depending on how much media they consume. We feel that this is a bad way to predict a student's knowledge.

3. How does family involvement compare with media literacy? (There is a direct correlation between family involvement and media literacy.) We would see if there is a correlation between literacy and family involvement. This could show that students who have more involved families are more likely to talk about media and therefore are more literate. We could also then tie this in with usage. This would be interesting because families may help or hinder in the media literacy process (i.e., nature vs. nuture).

4. Is there any correlation between how media literate a student is and if they picked a "media job" or not? We would make a scale of the job selections from 'very media centric' to 'not media at all' and place each student on this scale depending on their job selection. It would be interesting to see if a student who wants to go into a media related field would have more knowledge about media. This would be on an x, y axis.

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"The previous section on deliberation and public voice implies that to be civically engaged is to address matters of policy or politics. However, civic engagement is a broader concept that also comprises cultural production" (Levin, p.121).

(In the video we watched on pbs.org, civic engagement was seemingly seen as only political. Levin stresses the need to understand civic engagement as a much larger, broader topic.)

In Media Literacy classes, is civic engagement conceptualized as a political technique?

A survey would be conducted of 200 media literacy educators who incorporate civic engagement in their lessons. The teachers would teach different grade levels, be from different areas (urban, rural, suburban), be different ages, and be different races.

The survey would include questions such as: What do you think civic engagement is? What are some examples of civic engagement? What are some lessons you have conducted dealing with civic engagement? How is civic engagement portrayed in the media? Why did you pick the civic engagement lessons that you used? How civically engaged are you? What sources do you use (online or otherwise) to compliment your lessons?

After the surveys are completed. We would then two case studies on two very different teachers. We would hope to get one teacher who fully believes and that teaches that civic engagement lessons should be purely political. While the other would incorporate many different kinds of civic engagement lessons.