Impact of media literacy education on communication majors: Using grounded theory to explain effective MLE pedagogy and inform curriculum design and assessment criteria

This dissertation employed grounded theory research to examine effective media literacy education strategies as perceived by recent graduates of communication degree programs. The purpose of this study was to develop a conceptual for teaching and assessing media literacy in higher education. Current research highlights the impact of isolated media literacy lessons and emphasizes the importance of teaching media literacy; however, there is no consensus or comprehensive approach to creating media literacy curricula and assessments that can be widely deployed for various media usage, comprehension, application, or transfer. The following research questions guide the investigation of the phenomena. First, the study excavates how communication graduates describe Media Literacy Education experiences in undergraduate communication related degree programs; second, this study further inquired how communication graduates perceive their ability to transfer media literacy skills after graduation in both the personal and professional post-graduate experiences. Using semi-structured interviews via Zoom video-conferencing, the researcher gathered perspectives from 15 participants who graduated from a regional 4-year public Texas university with a communication related degree between the years 2015-2020. The data gathered informed the construction of a practical conceptual model that emphasizes the goals of situated learning, intersecting teaching, students, content, and context with ability to transfer learning from higher education programs to the personal and professional post-graduate world.