PERCEIVED MEDIA LITERACY OF FIRST YEAR UNDERGRADUATE STUDENTS AT A UNIVERSITY IN LATVIA

In the present digital age where disinformation and manipulation are increasingly bigger problems worldwide, media literacy is widely considered a critical skill for citizens of well-functioning democracies.Following a series of reforms that were gradually introduced beginning with the 2020/2021 school year, media literacy skills are now included in the Latvian secondary education curriculum standards in the fields of language, civics and social studies, technology, and culture.The aim of this research is to determine the perceived media literacy skills of first year undergraduate students in Latvia who studied in secondary school following the implementation of these updated curriculum standards which explicitly include media literacy.163 first year undergraduate students at a university in Latvia who had graduated from secondary school following the full implementation of the new curriculum standards participated in a survey that asked questions regarding media literacy.Students were asked to rate their abilities regarding four key media literacy skills mentioned in the Latvian secondary education curriculum standards.On average, students rated their ability to discern fake from real news most highly, followed by their ability to recognize whether a media content author is trying to manipulate them, and then their ability to find quality information sources for research.Overall, they rated their ability to recognize logical fallacies as the lowest of the four indicators.However, when asked to give specific examples of the different indicators, although nearly three fourths of students named a correct method to discern fake news, less than half were able to correctly identify a way to recognize manipulation, find quality sources, or recognize logical fallacies.Furthermore, certain students who rated themselves as "very confident" about some of the media literacy indicators either named incorrect methods or were unable to answer.The results show that despite the focus on media literacy in the new Latvian secondary school curriculum and a general level of confidence among the students, university educators should continue developing student media literacy.