Testing an intervention to stimulate early adolescents’ news literacy application in the Netherlands: A classroom experiment

In a time of blurring lines between online content, early adolescents’ (12–15 years old) lack of critical engagement with news is problematic. Therefore, we need more effective interventions to empower their news literacy. Interventions should go beyond only informing on the news production process and focus on individual’s news literacy application in everyday life. This study tests an intervention based on (news) media literacy and motivational theory, inspired by the needs and preferences of early adolescents themselves, to stimulate news literacy elements (news literacy self-efficacy, value for media literacy, motivation, and social norms) and news literacy application (news consumption, news analysis, and news evaluation). The intervention consists of three lessons in which early adolescents (N = 258) learn about the news production process, combined with a learning-by-doing approach: writing and checking news articles. Based on a between-subjects waitlist experiment, the intervention was effective in increasing participants’ news literacy self-efficacy, but not (yet) in stimulating other news literacy elements and news literacy application. Nevertheless, this experiment offers valuable insights on the development of news literacy interventions. Prior State of Knowledge: Early adolescents encounter lots of (online) news daily. However, they have great difficulty with deciding on its trustworthiness, accuracy, and relevance. There is a need for educational interventions that stimulate their everyday critical engagement with news: their news literacy application. Novel Contributions: The study presents an intervention founded in (news literacy) theory and co-creation. Early adolescents gained self-efficacy through writing and checking news articles, combined with information, and incorporating their social context. However, they did not yet increase in news literacy application. Practical Implications: Using learning-by-doing approaches to stimulate news literacy application can be complex. More attention to testing clear goals in media education, and to other factors that influence early adolescents’ learning, such as intervention length, feedback, and the social context, is needed.</p