Nationwide implementation of media literacy training sessions on internet safety

Although numerous media literacy training sessions on internet safety for children and adolescents have been conducted, their number contrasts sharply with the few systematic studies on their effectiveness. In this study, we describe the evaluation of nationwide-implemented training sessions on internet safety in Luxembourg, which included perceptions of learning outcomes and evaluations of implementation and effectiveness. Training data from 2011 to 2018 were analyzed, including 28,060 students and 5,031 teachers. Students reported pronounced learning effects, especially for younger students and for repeated training participation. Teachers greatly appreciated the implementation and effectiveness, which generally increased over the years. The perceived effectiveness of the training was significantly related to teachers’ planning to cover internet safety topics in future lessons. The present study shows that carefully planned and continuously evaluated training sessions on internet safety successfully support children’s understanding and teachers’ willingness to implement internet safety in their curriculum.

The students perceived the trainings as insightful and understanding, but the different age groups differed from each other. The youngest age group (<12 years old) found the training significantly more instructive than the other ages groups (p < .001). The oldest age group (>18) showed significantly lower scores than their younger peers. The age group from 16- to 18-year-old students reported a significantly lower understanding than their younger peers. Gender differences could also be found. Female students had higher insights (M = 3.58, SD = .50; t(25,682.26) = 12.53, p < .001, d = .15) and understanding (M = 3.76, SD = .36; t(25,849.92) = 7.37, p < .001, d = .11) than their male counterparts. Being pre-informed about the training was negatively associated with repetition and positively correlated with understanding and insight. Insight and understanding were also higher than in students which had not bin informed. Repetition was negatively correlated with insights but positively associated with understanding. Repeating the training has lower insights but higher understanding compared to first time trainings. The youngest and oldest group felt most informed, the groups between felt least informed. For repetition individuals aged between 16 and 18 were most likely to already have participated in one or more trainings, followed by the 12- to 15-year-olds the above 18 and the ones younger than 12. “(…) there was no significant gender effect for feeling informed (Χ2 (1) = .21, p = .65, Cramer’s V = .003) but for repetition (Χ2 (1) = 10.43, p = <.001, V = .001). Female students (51.7 %) had participated more often in training before than male students (49.3 %).” Aline Tiemann, André Melzer & Georges Steffgen, 2021, page 12. (Teachers perceived the implementation and effectiveness of the training far above the scale mean. There was also a positive correlation between implementation & effectiveness, between having the subject covered before & will be covering it in the future, effectiveness & covered before and covered in the future. For implementation, effectiveness, covered before and will be covered differed significantly form each other over the years. With a positive trend over the years.)