Abstract
Although media literacy education is becoming more popular in Japan, programs to date have mainly focused on learning by and with media. Yet a well-balanced educational experience requires learning about media. The NHK broadcasting program for schools, "Experience! Media ABC's" was developed to help Japanese elementary school teachers new to media literacy education introduce lessons in a smooth and practical way to fifth and sixth graders. The purpose of this research is to examine the effectiveness of the program. The research uses a quasi-experimental design with a pretest and posttest. Fifty-five fifth graders in Experimental Group 1 were given a task of watching the program (eye-catching copy) and a four-hour-lesson. The Experimental Group 2 just watched the program and the Control Group had no treatment [MSOffice1]. The results of the comprehensive "Media Literacy test" reveal that Experimental Group 1 presented significantly higher posttests scores than the other two groups, and showed higher satisfaction and motivation for learning as well as an increased incentive for advanced activities. The teachers in Group 1 also recognized the effectiveness of the program. The results prove that the program is appropriate for children to learn about media.
