Pula students’ television competencies

Educators and teachers’ media competencies are a prerequisite for children and youth’s successful media use as future active democratic citizens. In Croatia, however, they are not yet systematically acquired and are mostly studied in general, in elementary schools, while student populations and television competencies are marginalized. Therefore, we conducted a quantitative empirical study of future educators and teachers’ television competencies on a sample of the 140 first-year undergraduate students of the Juraj Dobrila University of Pula. The data were collected by a questionnaire while descriptive and inferential statistics were used in the processing of the collected data. The results show students’ low TV competencies in general and a difference in relation to the study and educational module. Students studying Preschool Education (which includes the Media Culture course) are more competent than their colleagues are, while future teachers have less TV competencies than others do. Such an outcome highlights the need to upgrade the university curricula for educators and teachers.