Designing and Implementing Virtual Education Course of Media Literacy for Medical Sciences Students: An Experimental Study

Background and Objective: One of the necessities of the information age is the need for education, especially in the field of media literacy. This study aimed to determine the effect of educational programs on media literacy of medical students of Shahid Sadoughi in Yazd in 2020. Materials and Methods: An experimental study was conducted through a stratified random sampling design on 88 students (44 in the experimental group and 44 in control) of Shahid Sadoughi University of Medical Sciences, Yazd. The educational program was implemented using storyline software, and educational messages were sent to the students of the experimental group during 10 sessions. The data collection tool was a media literacy questionnaire that was completed before intervention and two months after the training program. The paired t-test and independent t-test were used to express analytical indices.  All analyzes were performed in SPSS software version 26 and level of 5% was considered as significant level.  Results: The results of the chi-square test between demographic characteristics in the control and experimental groups showed that the two groups were identical in terms of study variables (p> 0.05). Before intervention, the mean scores of all variables in the control and experimental groups did not differ significantly (p> 0.0 5), while the mean scores of critical thinking, production ability, analysis ability and familiarity with media abbreviations were significantly changed in the two groups (p = 0.001) after intervention.   Conclusion: According to the obtained results, education raises the level of media literacy in using the virtual world. It is suggested that the reasons for the lack of growth in media literacy in Iran need the further investigation. Considering media knowledge as the main course in educational programs of students is essential to promote their media literacy