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Development and validation of a scale for assessing university students' new online media and reporting literacy

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Abstract

New media literacy is an expected competency for university students. However, few literacy scales can evaluate students' fake news reporting and checking abilities. In the past, the new media literacy framework only included Critical Consuming, Critical Prosumption, Functional Prosumption, and Functional Consuming. Therefore, this study proposes a self-assessable new online media and reporting literacy scale (NOMRL) based on the previous new media literacy framework. The NOMRL scale was developed in four phases. A literature review generated a pool of items in the first phase. Phase 2 was conducted through an expert review to confirm the validity of the content. Phase 3 was the purification of the scale in Study 1, where 243 university students participated in this survey phase. Finally, we analyzed 365 university students' responses in Study 2 and derived a factor structure using EFA while conducting a reliability assessment with CFA to test the theoretical structure. This study resulted in a 22-item scale, including two new constructs: Behavioral Consumption and Behavioral Prosumption. The scale can help college students self-assess their level of reporting-related literacy in social media. In addition to discussing the educational implications, this paper provides insights and suggestions for future research.

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Acknowledgements

This study is based on the third author’s master's thesis, and it was conducted under the project number MOST 110-2511-H-025 -002 -MY2 at the National Science and Technology Council in Taiwan.

Funding

This study was supported by the National Science and Technology Council, Taiwan, under contract numbers MOST 110–2511-H-025 -002 -MY2.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. National Taichung University of Science and Technology, Taichung, Taiwan

    Kuo-Lun Hsiao & Ya-Ting Lee

  2. National Taiwan University of Science and Technology, Taipei, Taiwan

    Ya-Yuan Ku

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  1. Kuo-Lun Hsiao
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  2. Ya-Yuan Ku
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Correspondence to Ya-Yuan Ku.

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Appendix 1

Appendix 1

Table

Table 15 Initial item pool
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15

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Hsiao, KL., Ku, YY. & Lee, YT. Development and validation of a scale for assessing university students' new online media and reporting literacy. Educ Inf Technol 28, 13569–13594 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10639-023-11730-8

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