ABSTRACT
The need for reliable and valid measures of media literacy has grown among policymakers, researchers, and practitioners. Measures of media literacy can function as formative assessments to guide teachers’ day-to-day curriculum choices and instructional practices, but they may also offer strategic guidance for educational leaders to identify needs and resources for program implementation and quality control. Used comparatively, measures can provide information to political leaders and other stakeholders. Advocates also value measures of media literacy that attract new stakeholders or strengthen support for media literacy programs. Three approaches to the measurement of media literacy competencies are examined to explore how the norms of knowledge construction are embedded in the epistemological and social conventions of academic disciplines. Measures of media literacy must be considered in relation to issues of pedagogy and alignment with goals and outcomes as well as the context of the researcher and the learners’ needs. Although the measurement of media literacy inevitably reduces variation, nuance, and other indicators of cultural richness, it does not need to ignore the unique contexts of experience, the diverse media texts of daily life, or the pedagogies used to advance media literacy competencies.
