Conceptions of Adult Education Teachers-in-Training Regarding the Media Literacy Education of Older People: A Phenomenographic Study to Inform a Course Design

This phenomenographic study represents part of an ongoing design-based research initiative to inform the design of a new course on older people’s media literacy in the adult-education teacher-education context. The aim was to describe the conceptions of teachers-in-training regarding media literacy education for older people. The data consist of students’ written assignments in which they defined the concept of older people, their societal roles, and of the media literacy education targeting them. The participants included teachers-in-training (N = 22) from a Finnish university’s teacher education program. The data were analyzed qualitatively with the aim of exploring how these students define “older people,” the kinds of roles they perceive older people as having, the pedagogical content and approaches they see as most useful in media literacy education targeting older people, and the kinds of learning aims they set for themselves in the course. The results reveal implications for the design of the abovementioned new course.