Abstract:

The distribution of courses and subjects that is reflected in the curriculum for the Communication Degree at University Loyola Andalucía (Spain) has been designed in order to improve student learning in every academic year. Regarding this vision, there are two relevant subjects that are quite connected with each other: Theory of communication, which belongs to the first year, and Public opinion that belongs to the last year –the fourth-.

On the one hand, the main objectives of Theory of communication refer to enabling students to identify the principal communication and mass media theories and to understand the role of media and communication in the current society. On the other hand, Public opinion is focused on giving tools for analysing the purpose of public opinion in the social and political landscape, but also aims to motivate students to turn into communication strategists who knows how to create powerful messages that motivate opinion. In sum, both subjects deal with the idea of «asymmetry in the distribution of power» or «asymmetry agentivity» as a cross curriculum concept inside the syllabus framework.

«Asymmetry agentivity» has been popularly related to dictatorship structures, but it is also revealed in democratic societies nowadays. For that reason, Theory of communication means the first stage in student’s development in which undergraduates become knowledgeable of social structures, human culture, mass media theories and political power. However, regarding Public opinion, students are expected to acquire in depth knowledge at the end of the course about political models, citizen behaviours and social organization.

Following this approach, the main objective of this research is to assess the students learning outcomes in order to find out whether or not undergraduates have improved their knowledge of «asymmetry in the distribution of power» and other related issues like, for example, privileged access to information, elitist theory or individual rights, among others perspectives.

The methodology of this study is based on projecting a movie during the class and passing out a quantitative questionnaire later. The selected film is In Time and the quantitative questionnaire is set up by ten closed-end questions designed to connect the plot of the film with theoretical knowledge. A 10-item Likert scale-type question has been used to give us data to measure not only the undergraduates’ level of knowledge, but also to assess improvement knowledge and critical thinking skills. At the end of the questionnaire there are eight question that aims to gather students’ perception of the film and it is also based on a 10-item Likert scale.

Hence, a database in the statistical programme SPSS was created and an ad-hoc content analysis template has been designed as well, to study the main features of information we have collected. The main results show there are not significant differences between undergraduates in the first year and in the fourth and last year. Although undergraduates in the last year have improved their knowledge, we believe they have not reached the level of maturity required to develop critical thinking skills within the field of theory of communication and public opinion.

Keywords:

Theory of communication, public opinion, comparative analysis, quantitative research, learning innovation, film criticism.