Journal of Educational Practice and Research

Unpacking Media Literacy: Exploring Undergraduate Students’ Understanding Towards Critical Consuming

Yi-Chih Chiang, Tzu-Bin Lin, & Yu-An Sun

This study explores how undergraduate students understand media literacy (ML), and how their critical consuming abilities function during a news-reading process. The participants were 35 students from the NTU Triangle Alliance. Semi-structure interview and article reading for four cases were designed for data collection. The findings show that interviewees have limited understanding of ML, and they did not consider the knowledge and skills related to media production as part of ML. While questioning the credibility of Taiwanese media, their reaction to the articles was only based on the distrust of Taiwanese media, not on the function of their ML ability such as analysis, synthesis, or evaluation. Thus, the authors suggest that Taiwanese media literacy education should not just focus on offering knowledge of ML at a cognitive level, but enhance students' competence in media literacy in higher education.


Keyword：critical consuming, media literacy, media literacy education, undergraduate students

Consultation and Cross-professional Collaboration to Resolve Students’ Problem Behaviors: An Action Research

Su-Fen Tu

This action research explored the consultation process of a counseling psychologist who worked collaboratively with a teacher to resolve her difficulties with students’ behavioral problems. The researcher served as a consultant, while the consultee was a 26-year-old female novice teacher. The research followed the “question-action-evaluation” process, the action plan comprised of four days of training, ten classroom sessions and five teacher consultation session. The results showed that there were five major process factors and a “positive support and interpersonal feedback centered teacher consultation model” was conceptualized. The model suggested that providing positive support and interpersonal feedback to the teacher was the key factor in consultation. Other factors included to explore and assess, to understand the meaning of client and system’s behavior, to develop positive behavior support guidance strategies, and to obtain teacher’s awareness and insight. Additional important findings were that consultation involved cross-professionals’ collaboration during which consultant introduced “others” perspective but respected teacher’s subjectivity. Also, having considerations of individual, class dynamics and teacher-students’ relationships was necessary for developing appropriate guidance strategies. Actions of changes were initiated when the teacher’s self-awareness was enhanced. With a focus on teacher’s strengths and positive supports during the consultation, the teacher grew and transferred the positive experience to the students. Finally, the current research provided discussion and suggestions about teachers’ anxieties and challenges in resolving students’ problem behaviors under traditional Chinese teachers’ culture.

The Construction of Dimensions and Competency Indicators of Elementary School Principals’ Turnaround Leadership: A Novel Hybrid MCDM Model

Chih-Feng Lai

This study aims to construct the dimensions of elementary school principals’ turnaround leadership and related competency indicators, the relationships of effects and weight system. It includes three stages. During the first stage, the dimensions and indicators of elementary school principals’ turnaround leadership were developed based on literature review, and validated by ten experts. Then, stratified random sampling was conducted; 515 elementary school principals were invited to fill out the questionnaire, and among which 371 valid questionnaires were obtained. By using SPSS and AMOS, item analysis and Confirmatory Factor Analysis were conducted. During the second stage, 14 elementary school principals, scholars and experts were invited to fill out the expert questionnaire. By using DEMATEL, INRM of dimensions and indicators were created. During the third stage, by using DANP, the relationships of effects among indicators and weight system were established. The findings of this study indicated that: 1) there are four dimensions and 20 indicators of elementary school principals’ turnaround leadership; 2) there is an interdependent relationship between the four dimensions and 20 indicators and they influence each other; 3) the four dimensions are driving results, problem solving, personal effectiveness, and influencing results in the order of importance. Finally, specific suggestions were offered for educational decision-making, leadership practice, and future research.

Develop Instructional Modules for Teenagers to Participate in the Society Through Documentaries

Cheng-Nan Yu & Tai-Chien Kao

The purpose of this study was to explore the teaching design of instructional modules for teenagers to make documentaries. To conform to the educational trends asking students to step outside the classrooms and participate in the society, the method of process flow diagram was applied to help students clarify social issues, invent creative stories for documentaries, and therefore establish connections with the society. The method of design research through multiple iterative processes was employed. The subjects were 52 teenagers who produced 16 documentaries from 2010 to 2016. Three instructional modules were constucted from this study. They were “foundational process module”, “joining storytelling module”, and “adding viewpoint for clarification module” which could be used separately or simultaneously in teaching. These modules could be used as guidelines to help students form storylines for documentaries from their own viewpoints that could lead to social participation.