Research Statement

As misinformation and disinformation continue to become an increasingly prevalent problem in modern society, there is a growing need for educational support to combat this problem for all ages through media literacy. 

Our goal was to investigate the current availability of up-to-date educational support tools and the amount of resources per age group (for example, elementary school, high school, higher education, mid life, late life, etc.), as well as where educators and community members need more support and guidance when educating the public about this complex topic.

Methods

To investigate the need for and availability of digital media literacy curriculum for supporting community members of all ages, we conducted a systematic literature review of fifty-six existing online resources and curriculum for combating misinformation and disinformation, as well as promoting digital media literacy.

For this resource search, we used four databases: Google Scholar, Google Search, the Association for Computing Machinery Library, and the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Library.

Within these databases, we used five search terms: “digital media literacy curriculum,” “misinformation literacy,” “digital media literacy curriculum,” “disinformation curriculum,” and “misinformation curriculum.”

From this initial search, fifty-six resources were selected by two reviewers (EB & MN) based on the title of the resource.

Once the initial list of resources was generated, two reviewers (EB & MN) individually generated Miro boards where they conducted a deductive categorization of the resources by theme to come up with a preliminary list of resource types.

At this stage, six resources were rejected for reasons such as the links being dead, the resources being out-of-date, or the topic of the resource was irrelevant.

These reviewers then met to compare and discuss their categorization and debate how the resources were rejected. Once consensus was met, the remaining resources (n = 50) were divided in half and each reviewer did an in-depth review of their twenty-five resources to further categorize and reject the resources, as well as document what audience (i.e. age group, teachers, librarians) the resource was geared toward.

Additionally at this stage, each reviewer skimmed the other reviewer’s resources to help facilitate a more thorough conversation surrounding the relevance of the resource during discussion.

Reviewers again met to discuss the categorization of resources and rejections; at this stage, twelve resources were rejected and two resources were added, resulting in a final list of forty resources. Resources were rejected for being irrelevant, the URL link being dead, or the resource being behind a paywall, while two resources were discovered while vetting resources.

At the end of the vetting process, the reviewers had a list of 19 codes. This list of codes was consolidated into nine final codes due to redundancy. The reviewers also categorized all resources by the following potential audiences Elementary-School Aged, Middle and High School Aged, College and Adults, and Educators.

Final Code List

1. Source Reliability & Bias

2. Information Reasoning

3. Fact-Checking

4. Digital Literacy

5. Media & News Literacy

6. Civic & Internet Citizenship

7. Fake News & Propaganda

8. Misinformation & Disinformation

9. COVID-19

1. Elementary

2. Middle and High School

3. College & Adults

4. Educators.

Audiences

Results

Each of the forty resources received one to eight codes and one to four audiences depending on the content of the information included in the resources. The categorization of resources can be found in the table below.

Because resources could be categorized as more than one code and/or audiences, frequently the sum of columns and rows in the will be greater than the total number of resources (n = 40).

Each number represents how many resources were categorized as the code for each audience type. The column all the way to the right represents the total number of resources found for a code. 

Key Findings

While the reviewers classified resources for College Aged people and general Adults together, there were only three resources specifically geared toward the general Adult population as a whole.

The reviewers found no official resources specifically geared toward elderly adults or unconventional learning environments, such as teaching parents or grandparents about digital literacy. 

1. Middle and High School (n = 26)

2. Elementary School (n = 16)

3. College & Adults (n = 16)

4. Educators (n = 8)

Resources Ranked by Audience

Potential Limitations

To be expected, there were limitations to this research. We only included resources written in English that were published and publicly accessible online.

We chose to do this as we wanted to focus on resources easily available to the public. However, we recognize that there may be other resources accessible behind paywalls or available through search engines or keywords that we did not discover that may be just as valuable as the resources we have located.