New Study on Media Use in the Context of Progressive Education

In the “MünDig Study,” Prof. Dr. Paula Bleckmann, Professor of Media Education at Alanus University, presents surprising empirical findings on the topic of “Maturity and Digitalization.”

How do children and young people learn to use media confidently? Which medium—analog or digital—is appropriate for which purpose and at what age? And against this background, how should media education at Waldorf schools and Waldorf kindergartens be assessed? These are the questions explored by the current MünDig Study led by Alanus professor Paula Bleckmann. For the first time, the study on the topic of “Education in the Digital Age” considered not only the use of tablets and PCs, but also card index boxes, flipbooks, and library visits.

The newly published MünDig Study on the topic of “Maturity and Digitalization” aims to shed light on the current state of research as well as phenomena that have not yet been empirically investigated, to present correlations and influencing factors, and to classify them within academic discourse. In addition, “good practice examples” were recorded within the Waldorf sample and areas for further development were identified. Around 1,000 educational professionals, 4,000 parents, and 400 pupils took part in this online survey.

The research findings of Prof. Dr. Paula Bleckmann and her team show that Waldorf parents are generally satisfied with their children’s media education: More than 80 percent of respondents across all age groups rate positively the part that manages without smartphones, tablets, computers & co. “This shows,” says the study director, “that media education does not take place only on screens. Especially in kindergarten and primary school, comprehensive media education without screens is superior to the concept of the so-called digital daycare center.”

About 40 percent of parents are convinced by the way teachers introduce screen media in lower and upper secondary school. Like the pupils surveyed, they consider a more active use of digital media in lessons from grade 7 onward to be appropriate. “This result,” Paula Bleckmann emphasizes, “matches the assessment of the professionals. They see a major need for further training here.”

Many parents also want—depending on the age of the children—in addition to making greater use of the potential of modern media, more educational and practical support, for example with the installation of time-limiting or filtering software. Waldorf parents and the professionals working there agree that media education should be firmly embedded in the curriculum for younger children. However, they consider the use of media without screens to be sufficient: “Painting pictures and making flipbooks come before shooting films and creating websites,” Bleckmann summarizes this finding, adding that the surveyed parents of upper secondary students are anything but united on the right level of media use in the higher grades. Almost 50 percent believe that too little research is done with digital media at Waldorf schools, one tenth consider it too much, and just under half think the amount is right.

“What fascinates me,” Paula Bleckmann comments on these findings, “is that through my research I can influence how we as human beings will position ourselves in relation to technological developments in the future. Our differentiated, multidimensional survey, which distinguishes both by the age of the children and by media with and without screens, enabled parents to give Waldorf institutions a positive overall assessment while still identifying weaknesses.”

The strengths of progressive educational media education were also highlighted in the now published study report by means of more than 200 briefly mentioned practical examples. The research team from Alfter hopes that these will provide valuable inspiration for everyday life in daycare centers and schools—not only in the Waldorf context.

On the methodology:

The study is the result of a nationwide quantitative online survey. Data were collected from September to December 2019 at Waldorf and Montessori institutions and, in addition, from February to April 2020 at nature and forest kindergartens. The other two reports will be published in autumn 2022. The multi-perspective approach takes into account 60 example activities with 18 data points each and thus more than 1,500 individual data points per surveyed professional and more than 1,000 data points per surveyed parent. A total of three reports will be published.

The study was funded by the Software AG – Foundation, the Educational Research Unit at the Federation of Independent Waldorf Schools, and the Association of Waldorf Kindergartens.

>>Link to the MünDig Study
>>Link to the interview with Paula Bleckmann in “Erziehungskunst”

Photo: © Charlotte Fischer