Literacy Practices Research Articles

Development and validation of a self-perception instrument for critical media literacy in Chilean pre-service teachers

IntroductionThe influence of mass media and social media has profoundly impacted the way individuals access, interpret, and engage with information. It is becoming increasingly important to gain an understanding of media literacy practices, particularly among those who influence children and young people. In Spanish, there is little knowledge about critical literacy practices related to media content. This study aims to develop and validate a self-perception instrument designed to measure critical media literacy practices among Chilean pre-service teachers.MethodA structured written questionnaire with closed-ended questions was designed and validated. The instrument encompasses three dimensions: situating discourse within sociocultural contexts, recognizing and participating in discursive practices, and assessing the impact of media on the community and the individual. It comprises 28 first-person statements, rated on a five-point Likert scale.ResultsThe content was validated by a panel of experts in education, linguistics, and journalism in two phases, resulting in a high inter-rater agreement (κ = 0.78) and a content validity coefficient (CVC) of 0.97. A pilot study was conducted with 92 undergraduate students enrolled in teacher education programs. Exploratory factor analysis confirmed a three-factor structure that aligns with the proposed dimensions, explaining 51% of the total variance. Internal consistency analyses showed strong reliability, with a Cronbach’s alpha of 0.84 and McDonald’s omega of 0.85.DiscussionThe results indicate that the instrument is valid and reliable for assessing self-perceived critical media literacy practices. The findings underscore the need for educational interventions to enhance students’ ability to critically engage with media content.

Conceptualizing the Dangerous Rise of Ethnoreligious Nationalist Literacies in Education

Reluctance to embrace change leaves societies vulnerable to the rise of authoritarian political ideologies, particularly during times of socioeconomic and political crises. Public schools have seen an increase in incidents where fundamentalist groups with differing agendas have attempted to pressure them into adopting curricula whose literacy practices are rooted in a White, northern European Protestant worldview. This essay examines this contemporary phenomenon in public education discourse, which the authors identify as “ethnoreligious nationalism.” It does so by providing a snapshot of current spectacles of ethnoreligious nationalist activism worldwide, discussing how their affective literacy strategies have contributed to the demoralization of public education as a democratic institution. We conclude by proposing potential questions for critical comparative international research on the literacies deployed by ethnoreligious nationalist movements across educational settings.

Covert and overt plagiarism: poetic attribution, originality and authorship

ABSTRACT Plagiarism in poetry is negotiated and understood via a series of tacitly agreed-upon techniques, which allow space for artistic practices of allusion and intertextuality, but also opens up increasingly complex concerns when poets fail to abide by these unspoken conventions. The techniques poets adopt to acknowledge or conceal their sources are wide-ranging but frequently under-represented in debates and scholarship about plagiarism, which more frequently focus on the moral and ethical arguments for and against using another's work. In this paper, we will argue that disclosure and documentation-through epigraphs, notes and other means of acknowledgement-are central to the so-called ‘cento defence’, allowing the poet to present the work of others as their own, whereas alterations, especially minor substitutions, and the absence of disclosure, are central to current conceptions of plagiarism. In doing so, we seek to define and make explicit the tacit conventions in contemporary literary practice relating to theft from the perspective of the poet-practitioner.

Sybil and the screen: A very young child’s digital literacy practices in a home environment

Sybil and the screen: A very young child’s digital literacy practices in a home environment

Undergraduate Students’ Preferences for Literacy Practices in Higher Education: Towards Transformative Pedagogy

This study is necessitated by the observation that university students’ preferences do not reflect the ideal pedagogical practices in higher education, especially university students in Ghana. Therefore, given that previous studies have concentrated solely on classroom-related practices of lecturers, this study examines undergraduate students’ preferences for their lecturers’ pedagogical practices in higher education. It addresses Peripheral Academic Writing Practices (PAWP) and Actual Academic Writing Practices (AAWP). Using the quantitative approach, with focus on cross-sectional survey design, the study samples 598 Bachelor of Education (Arts) students. Preference for literacy practices questionnaire (PLPsQ) is adopted for the study, with emphasis on dichotomised regularities in higher education: normative socialization (NS) and Academic Literacies Socialization (ALS). Data analysis focuses on mean and standard deviation. Findings from the study indicate that undergraduate students’ preferences show a blended approach of hybridised notations of an integrated pattern of teacher-centred and non-digital based approach to pedagogy as well as student-centred and digital-based approach to pedagogy. Regarding the priority ratings of their preferences, they seem to prefer practices that require their active participation in the lesson, engagement in criticality, and utilisation of digital-based technology. However, in terms of information generating practices, undergraduate students seem to have the most preference for teacher-centred information-generation practices, where they would want their lecturers to provide them with all the information (such as copious notes, pamphlets, course packs, and handouts) that they need to learn for the semester. Therefore, various departments in higher education, especially in Ghana, should organise research clinics, student-led seminars, and workshops in order to develop students’ habit of generating their own knowledge so as to realise the decolonisation, liberalisation, and transformative agenda envisaged in higher education.

Motivations, Challenges, Best Practices, and Benefits for Bots and Conversational Agents in Software Engineering: A Multivocal Literature Review

Bots are software systems designed to support users by automating specific processes, tasks, or activities. When these systems implement a conversational component to interact with users, they are also known as conversational agents or chatbots . Bots—particularly in their conversation-oriented version and AI-powered—have seen increased adoption over time for software development and engineering purposes. Despite their exciting potential, which has been further enhanced by the advent of Generative AI and Large Language Models, bots still face challenges in terms of development and integration into the development cycle, as practitioners report that bots can add difficulties rather than provide improvements. In this work, we aim to provide a taxonomy for characterizing bots, as well as a series of challenges for their adoption in software engineering, accompanied by potential mitigation strategies. To achieve our objectives, we conducted a multivocal literature review , examining both research and practitioner literature. Through such an approach, we hope to contribute to both researchers and practitioners by providing (i) a series of future research directions to pursue, (ii) a list of strategies to adopt for improving the use of bots for software engineering purposes, and (iii) fostering technology and knowledge transfer from the research field to practice—one of the primary goals of multivocal literature reviews.

Theorizing Digital Dialogic Comprehension Pedagogy With Rural Primary Teachers: A Relational Praxis of Knowledge, Space, and Time

This grounded theory study explored how primary-grade teachers perceive and enact dialogic English Language Arts (ELA) comprehension pedagogy in the novel context of pandemic-induced digital learning. The study involved nine diverse rural primary teachers teaching digitally during the coronavirus disease pandemic. The researchers followed a constructivist, postmodern orientation to co-construct substantive theory with the knowledge of participating teachers. The researchers conducted two rounds of virtual interviews and collected digital artifacts of ELA comprehension instruction. Qualitative data were analyzed using constant comparative analysis to address teacher perceptions and enactments of digital dialogic comprehension instruction. The emergent substantive theory represents connected, iterative processes of teachers perceiving and enacting dialogic, digital instruction. First, teachers espoused a dialogic stance toward ELA instruction based on their beliefs in various comprehension paradigms, diverse funds of knowledge, and multiplicity of voices in discourse. Relatedly, teachers responded to particularities of virtual contexts, digital discourses, and pandemic times to enact dialogic ELA comprehension instruction through a reconstruction of literacy pedagogies. Implications for research and practice are discussed, including the need for ongoing negotiation of dialogic pedagogy in diverse instructional contexts, to cultivate teachers’ dialogic literacy practices in locally and culturally responsive ways.

Creating translanguaging affirmative space through artifactual literacies: towards addressing power imbalance with multilingual parents

Researching migrant and multilingual parents’ literacy practices with their children is ethically complex due to the dominant discourses of language and literacy which devalue such practices as irrelevant or deficient. Translanguaging theory and the related concept of translanguaging space offer opportunities to consider dialogue with multilingual parents differently, valuing their literacy practices in the interview space. Drawing on data from an artifactual literacies study with multilingual parents, the paper discusses three aspects which contributed to reframing the interview as translanguaging affirmative space: the value of artefacts brought by the parents in relating their lived experiences; the role of semantic maps as shared multilingual writing; and the use of multilingual transcribing. It is argued that through these practices, a translanguaging affirmative space was co-produced which contributed to reducing the power imbalance inherent in research. It is further argued that such translanguaging space can be co-produced by researcher and participant, even when they do not share a home language.

The Discursive Journey of Meta-Awareness: Literacy (Teacher) Identity Within Preservice Teacher Preparation

The purpose of this study is to examine preservice teachers’ (PTs) meta-awareness related to their developing literacy (teacher) identities and examine the discursive belief systems and patterns embedded within this context. In this instrumental case study, we aim to determine the relationship(s) between meta-awareness and PTs’ literacy (teacher) identities through how they demonstrate their knowledge of literacy instruction and envision future literacy practices. The findings include PTs’ demonstration of their meta-awareness of literacy through their use of evaluative language, explicit memories, and content appropriation. Because personal and professional identities draw deeply from one another in shaping how PTs demonstrate their learning, our discussion expands upon this duality. Implications for teacher educators include recontextualizing one's past experiences as a reader and writer in literacy methods coursework as a means of moving toward agentic redress and responsive instruction.

Flattening Hierarchies and Encouraging Reflection: Systems Maps as a Local Literacy Practice

In this study, we explore systems thinking maps as a local literacy practice in a systems thinking professional development institute for PreK-8 teachers. Existing literature underscores the necessity of equipping teachers with a robust understanding of systems thinking; this study addresses a call in the research to find ways to do so. Rooted in the principles of systems thinking, professional development, and literacy practices, we analyze how the literacy practice of systems thinking mapping contributed to participant pedagogical reflection and systems thinking theory development. We employed a case study approach, allowing an in-depth investigation of the mapping literacy events within the professional development setting. We collected data throughout the four days of the professional development; the data set included observations and recordings of mapping sessions, reflections on mapping from 29 participants, and photographs of the systems maps created. Our results highlight the potential of systems thinking maps to foster collective understandings of systems thinking, deepen understandings via the co-construction of dynamic texts, and imagine pedagogical possibilities. The literacy practice not only strengthens participants’ grasp of systems but also creates a shared space for collaborative learning, flattening hierarchies and engaging teachers as co-learners. The implications extend to disrupting traditional professional structures, emphasizing the centrality of the learner while fostering hope, optimism, and agency. This study contributes valuable insights into literacy practices that promote collaborative learning among teachers, encouraging a shift toward more inclusive and transformative professional development.

The Good Cops, Bad Cops, Bullets, and Wounds: Toward Culturally Sustaining Prison Abolition Literacies in Early Childhood Education

AbstractDominant discourses on the prison industrial complex/ mass incarceration tend to prioritize the experiences of Black adults. However, Black children are dual victims of the prison industrial complex. By that, we mean that they are subjected to incarceration in and beyond early childhood education, and the negative impact of the incarceration of parents/caregivers and other family members. With such considerations in mind, early childhood teachers should teach young Black children to become aware of the injustices of the prison industrial complex. To that end, we ask the following question: How can teachers raise Black children's consciousness of the prison industrial complex and encourage them to build a longstanding commitment to dismantle it through early literacy practices? In this conceptual article, we draw on culturally sustaining pedagogy, the imprisoned Black radical tradition, and abolitionist teaching to introduce and explain the utility of culturally sustaining prison abolition literacies—a literacy practice that acknowledges the pervasive injustices of the carceral state and action‐oriented ways to combat them to protect Black children and other minoritized children—in early childhood teaching and curriculum.

Translating Blackness through youth language learning in the Dominican Republic

AbstractThis article presents findings from a six‐month Language and Social Justice course collaboratively designed with multilingual educators in the Dominican Republic. Teaching and learning processes with Dominican and Haitian youth (ages 18–24) illustrate how opportunities to learn about English and Kreyòl from a transnational perspective can disrupt dominant discourses about youth's relationships with themselves and each other. By intentionally focusing on counternarratives to notions that Dominican youth reject their Blackness and that Dominican and Haitian youth interact in tension rather than solidarity, this study highlights how youth “translate blackness” (García Peña, 2022) through language learning. Drawing from transnational literacy frameworks that engage the cultural and linguistic repertoires of Black youth in relationship with one another (Skerrett & Omogun, 2020; Smith, 2023) and from Black‐centered language pedagogies (Anya, 2017; Clemons, 2021b), I describe how youth negotiate meanings and orientations to Blackness through language and literacy practices.

Looking Upstream:

“Looking upstream” refers to going beyond the negative effects of the current problems which disproportionately impacts historically marginalized families— water contamination, flooding, and scarcity—to see causation: why is the problem happening in the first place? In this article, we “look upstream” at our language and literacy practices and attempt to see how these are entangled with representations of our place in the water cycle. We examine a few curricular artifacts from our Literacy Clinic—dually focused on responsive literacy instruction and water justice—to illustrate our entanglements with linguistic systems, discourses, and narratives. Part of the way forward, we argue, is changing the ways we speak, write, and read in relation to our shared environment, including water and all forms of life.

Aesthetic Literacies in Digital Learning Ecologies: Tracing Aesthetic Tools and Functions in a Youth Literary Salon

Concerned with disinformation, fake news, and a posttruth era, literacy research on digital learning ecologies has focused on content of the texts that youth encounter but less explicitly on aesthetics—issues of form or the way a text is written. Drawing on critical sociocultural theories, this article examines youth aesthetic meaning-making with non-neutral digital texts. The data analyzed are part of a multiyear multimethod study of the aesthetic literacy practices of queer youth of color and allies. Data were collected during an online summer literary salon where youth discussed textual content alongside issues of aesthetic forms. Findings illustrate that youth drew on a broad range of aesthetic tools to achieve (1) a poetic function concerned with how aesthetic forms elicit figurative, connotative, and storied meanings; (2) a catalytic function concerned with how aesthetic forms persuade, manipulate, or encourage particular actions; and (3) an ideological function concerned with how aesthetic forms inscribe or contest social inequalities. These tools and functions, complicate previous understandings of disinformation, fake news, and critical reasoning in literacies research. This study suggests a critical sociocultural approach to aesthetics as territory for further scholarship across many areas of literacy research.

Evidence of Strategic Information Literacy Practices in Early Career Teachers' Navigation of TeachersPayTeachers

Teachers Pay Teachers (TPT) has emerged as the most popular online educational marketplace of the moment, but exactly how curriculum marketplaces support professional learning and classroom curriculum design is still an emerging area of inquiry in educational research. This paper explores the perspectives of six novice teachers on the supplemental teaching materials available on TPT. Through semi-structured think-aloud interviews, we identified tensions related to teachers’ landscapes of practice, institutional mistrust, perceived authoritativeness of TPT sellers, curriculum marketplaces as altruistic platforms, and the affordances and constraints of TPT for managing finite resources. Findings suggest that professionals who work with preservice and in-service teachers must reframe their discussion of curriculum marketplaces toward developing early-career teachers’ critical curriculum cultivation practices. Such reframing has the potential to influence how educators make use of online curriculum marketplaces, what resources they download, and how those resources are employed.

“They're Like Slash”: Multimodality and Embodied Agency in Students' Critical Engagements with Texts

AbstractDespite recent calls to more fully incorporate multimodal perspectives into literacies research, there is still limited scholarship examining how students critically engage in reading activities by drawing on embodied practices. Racially and linguistically minoritized students are particularly disadvantaged by dominant logocentric and developmentalist approaches, which privilege oral and written discourse and often position these students as less capable of performing complex literacy practices. Drawing from three independent ethnographic studies, our multimodal interactional analysis examines how students of a range of ages and raciolinguistic backgrounds use embodied actions and other semiotic resources to agentively navigate text, task, and ideological constraints in activities involving reading and analyzing texts. Our analysis demonstrates the crucial role of students' embodied practices in expanding upon and challenging the constraints of literacy activities, focusing particularly on how students leveraged epistemic stance‐taking, embodied affective responses, and embodied forms of argumentation to negotiate and co‐construct meaning. Through a focus on embodied agency, this paper presents and applies an interactional perspective on the embodied nature of literacy activities; shows how students' creative mobilizations of embodied and other semiotic resources contribute to their critical readings of texts; and offers pedagogical and methodological implications for ways educators and researchers can attend to the intricacies of students' embodied sense‐making in literacy activities.

Storybook validation: Essential practices for student's financial literacy

Storybook validation: Essential practices for student's financial literacy

Pathways to motivation and learning in English language education: a case of two youths engaging in multiliteracies

Purpose This study investigates the effect of digital multimodal composing (DMC) on student motivation and literacy in English as a Foreign Language (EFL) contexts. It explores how students engaged in creating digital animations to respond to literary texts and the implications for integrating DMC into traditional literacy practices. Grounded in social semiotic theory and Self-Determination Theory, this study aims to understand how digital composing influences student engagement, motivation and literacy development. Design/methodology/approach Qualitative data were gathered over a six-month period using a combination of student surveys, semi-structured interviews, reflection logs and student-produced scripts/animations. This study focused on two university students who engaged in multimodal projects as part of their extracurricular EFL activities, examining their processes and reflections. Findings Students demonstrated strong intrinsic motivation during DMC processes, largely due to the social affordances provided by digital multimodal composing. By combining traditional literacy skills with digital practices, students experienced enhanced creative expression, enhanced meaning-making and a deeper understanding of literary texts through the production and sharing of animated videos. This process promoted both emotional and cognitive engagement, emphasizing the importance of teacher guidance and digital tools in creating a more dynamic and supportive learning environment. Practical implications This study outlines a practical approach to DMC through a structured process: selecting and reading a book, proposing a change as if requesting it from the author, creating and sharing a video on YouTube to explain the change and reflecting on the experience. This approach can guide educators in designing activities that deepen student engagement, enhance critical thinking and integrate digital tools with traditional learning methods. Originality/value This study contributes to the understanding of how digital technologies can transform traditional literacy practices, offering insights into the benefits of multimodal composition for language learning and motivation in EFL contexts. It provides practical examples of how students and teachers can leverage digital tools to enhance literacy education and prepare students for 21st-century challenges.

Understanding of Health literacy among Healthcare students in Saudi Arabia: a cross-sectional study

Background and objectiveHealth literacy is the cognitive and social abilities that influence a person’s motivation and capacity to learn, comprehend, and use information to improve and maintain good health. We aimed to investigate Healthcare Students’ knowledge, attitudes, and practices regarding Health Literacy in the Riyadh Province of Saudi Arabia.MethodsThis study used prevalidated electronic questionnaires among healthcare undergraduates from colleges affiliated with Saudi University in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, from December to April 2024. Healthcare students were asked to answer a self-designed online questionnaire sent to them through social media platforms.ResultsThe response rate was 560 out of 600 (93.3%); 293 of the 560 students (52.3%) were aged between 23 and 24 years (mean age was 21.29 SD = 1.852). The mean GPA among the students was 4.31(± 0.682). The average overall score for health literacy among healthcare students was 100.92 ± 11.80. The mean scores for knowledge were 24.17 ± 4.67, attitudes were 38.65 ± 4.20, and practice in health literacy was 38.09 ± 5.09. Among all healthcare students, 50.2% reported good knowledge, 54.1% had good attitudes, and 50.1% exhibited good practices in health literacy. However, students’ knowledge (p = 0.019) and training (p = 0.024) in health literacy were significantly associated with smoking cigarettes. Additionally, smoking shisha was significantly associated with students’ knowledge (p = 0.022), attitudes (p = 0.001), and practices (p = 0.001) in health literacy.ConclusionOur study highlights that half of the healthcare students reported limited knowledge, attitude, and practice in health literacy. Age, gender, and course of study did not show significant differences. Rather, students who did not smoke cigarettes or shisha were found to have higher knowledge, attitudes, and practice in health literacy compared to smokers. However, to improve health literacy, additional education and increased awareness are needed. Further investigation is warranted to address the factors related to poor health literacy.

Fostering Critical Digital Literacy Through Podcasting, Collaborative Work, and Oral Interaction

Introduction: Mastering a second or foreign language, especially oral communication, is complex and challenging, influenced by external pressures as seen in Colombia's education and language policy reforms, which compel teachers and institutions to address how to develop language skills with students. Objective: This study aimed to explore how collaborative podcast development, as a critical digital literacy practice, can enhance 11th graders' oral and critical interaction in English. Methodology: Conducted in a public school, the research employs a qualitative approach within a case study methodology. Although quantitative techniques like checklists and questionnaires were used for data collection, the study maintains a qualitative design. Through semi-structured interviews with a subgroup of five students, participants reflect on their experiences of collaborative learning and interaction in English while constructing a podcast. Data was analyzed using a triangulation method. Findings: Thematic analysis revealed that collaborative podcast development promoted English oral interaction among participants, fostering collaboration, exchange of thoughts and feelings, and increased language confidence. Discussion and Conclusions: The study advocates for a reexamination of digital practices in the classroom to promote English oral interaction from a critical perspective. It recommends collaborative podcast development as a digital practice to enhance oral interaction, empowering students to use English in social and academic contexts.