Investigating the Effect of the Media Literacy Family Education Program on the Media Literacy Levels of 48-60-Month-Old Children and Their Mothers

Abstract

The research aimed to examine the effect of the media literacy family education program on the media literacy levels of 48-60-month-old children and their mothers. The research was conducted as distance education with 48-60-month-old children and their mothers attending independent kindergartens affiliated with the Çankırı Provincial Directorate of National Education during the 2019-2020 academic period. In this context, 18 mothers and children formed the experimental group and 22 mothers and children formed the control group. The quantitative part of the study, which was carried out with a convergent parallel mixed method model, consisted of a 2 x 3 mixed plot semi-experimental design with experimental and control groups consisting of pretest- post-test-permanence-test, and the qualitative part consisted of interviews with mothers after the program. In the study, the “General information form”, “Media literacy scale parent form”, “Media literacy scale child form” and “Semi-structured interview form” developed by the researchers were used as data collection tools, and the “Media literacy family education program” was prepared within the scope of the study. As a result of the research, a significant difference was found in the post-test scores of mothers and children in the experimental and control groups in favor of the experimental group. No significant difference was found in the comprehension dimension in the post-test-permanence-test scores of the mothers in the experimental group. In the interview held after the program, the mothers stated that there was a change in themselves and their children after the program, and that they found the training program effective. Based on the results obtained from the research, it can be recommended that parents act consciously about media and implement a media literacy family education program.