Empowering educators against disinformation: a study on assessing media literacy skills among secondary school teachers

This study explores the media literacy skills of Italian secondary school teachers, focusing on their ability to teach critical evaluation of digital sources and tackle disinformation. The research analyzed data from 63 secondary school teachers participating in a professional development course on evaluating digital content reliability. Results indicate significant deficiencies in teachers’ abilities to assess deceptive news, manipulated images, and decontextualized con- tent, with less than 46% achieving sufficient scores in each question of the pre-test. The findings underscore the urgent need for systematic teacher training initiatives to bridge these gaps and empower educators to foster students’ critical thinking and information resilience. This preliminary analysis contributes to the broader discourse on integrating media literacy into education and emphasizes the importance of equipping teachers with the skills necessary to counteract disinformation effectively.