Abstract:

During the last decade we have witnessed a more intense scientific and professional debate regarding the importance of education. Through the development of information and communication technologies education acquired a new dimension, and experts in the field of education witnessed challenges for developing new forms of teaching in the methodical, but also substantive terms. The media play a special role in today’s society, their influence has undoubtedly intensified and multiplicated with the development of technology. Considering the role and influence of the media on all of the segments of a person’s work and creativity, as well as education, the need for media education as a contribution to the understanding of the function of media and development of critical-analytical competencies for access to media contents. In that context, special need is directed towards children as active users of the media and media contents.

In the Republic of Croatia, in the elementary school educational programme, there is no separate school subject which would deal with media literacy; media education is covered within the subject Croatian Language. In the university-level education on multiple studies courses exist which are engaged in media education, media culture or media literacy.

Adopting learning materials by the pupils, especially in their earliest ages, to a considerable extent depends on the teachers and their skill of knowledge transfer. We also headed in that direction in this research, to study the recognition of importance and role of media education of future teachers and pupils of lower grades of elementary school.

The research was conducted by a survey method among students of undergraduate and graduate studies of lower elementary grades teaching (up to 4th grade) at the University of Zadar. The goal of the research was to determine which media, and with which purpose the students of lower elementary grades teaching use; what do they understand under the term media literacy, and the degree of self-evaluation of media literacy. The paper focuses special attention on evaluation of attitude of future teachers regarding the importance of media education in lower elementary school grades, on the role of media education in encouraging children to use the media in positive purposes and prevention of negative influence of the media on children, the role of parents and institutions in media education and whether their attitudes regarding the earlier mentioned differ considering the year of study.

Keywords:

Media education, media literacy, education, teachers, pupils.