Evaluation of Metaliteracy Levels among Moroccan University Students

Research on 21st century literacy skills in Morocco is scarce despite the growing threat of information disorder in online environments. Owing to the increasing reliance of Moroccans on social media for information, it is essential to address issues related to the veracity of internet content such as misinformation and disinformation and the skills that allow individuals to assess whether online information is trustworthy or not. Despite the fact that Morocco is heading more towards digitalization, the Moroccan educational system does not address these problems and has yet to show a full commitment to incorporating skills related to media and especially information literacy in all curricula. Moreover, traditional literacy concepts are no longer suited to dealing with the challenges that new age media poses. To address these issues, Mackey and Jacobson have proposed metaliteracy as a framework that addresses the limitations of traditional media literacy in the digital age. This study aims to evaluate metaliteracy skills of Moroccan university students. To achieve that, an online questionnaire was administered to a sample of 111 university students from the Faculty of Arts and Humanities Ben M’sik. Results revealed that respondents struggled with several essential skills necessary for safe and informed internet usage. Notably, age and education level showed correlations with media, digital, and information literacies. These findings highlight the need for further research on the effectiveness of metaliteracy in addressing misinformation as well as the need to implement these skills in Moroccan curricula. Keywords: Morocco, media literacy, digital literacy, information literacy, metaliteracy