Research

There is a dearth of solid evidence in the field of media education about learning and learning progression. I am always looking for opportunities to gather such evidence, preferably through properly designed and funded studies, but also just through more informal evaluations of projects. Here is one current research initiative I'm involved in, and two recent ones.

Reframing Literacy
I am part of a team led by Professor Jackie Marsh, and funded by the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority, in which the universities of Sheffield and Nottingham, the Centre for Literacy in Primary Education (CLPE) and the British Film Institute (BFI) are following up the BFI's film and literacy initiative (see Projects for more on this) to investigate what is involved in learning to acquire and understand key elements of film language, what the relationship is between this learning and other literacies, and how both teachers and pupils develop their subject knowledge in this area. This project begins in September 2008, and is essentially scoping out what we hope will be a larger and longer term study.

Learning about Broadcast News
Ofcom funded this eight-month study to identify learning outcomes achieved through BBC News School Report, an initiative which began in 2006. The BBC aims to provide opportunities for Year 8 children (ages 12-13) in UK schools to learn about news production. The research team, which was completely independent from the BBC, selected as case studies three schools who were involved in School Report, and interviewed selected pupils before and after the project, as well as observing activities in the schools on 22nd March, the day on which participating schools all did news projects which were linked to a national website. The research report was completed in August 2007 and is published by Ofcom under the title Lifeblood of Democracy? Learning about Broadcast News. Click here to see the research report.

Special Effects
This year-long project by the BFI and the National Foundation for Educational Research was funded by Creative Partnerships and reported in April 2007. The project aimed to identify the distinctive learning outcomes associated with moving image eduation. Nine case studies were selected, representing a range of types of school in different Creative Partnership areas, and selected pupils in each school were interviewed before and after their school's Creative Partnership project. The research team also observed activities during each project. Click here to see the research report.