The idea behind my project stemmed from my love of media
studies, however my topic of study had to be an element of media I do not study
as part of my course. I decided that the best way to do this was to focus closely
on one particular form of media and one specific demographic. Through this, I
decided that the best option for my EPQ was to study the social media habits of
secondary school students. The more initial research I did on this topic, the
further intrigued I became, and so it became my project to create an
educational video to present arguments on why social media and technology can
be either a curse or a blessing towards the youth of today.
I wanted to gather plenty of primary and secondary data to create
evidence for points I wish to make about social media habits of young people.
To do this, I decided to create a survey to give to one form group within every
year group in Tupton Hall secondary school. This left me with 113 pieces of
data to show things such as which sites students are using, how long they use
sites for and what they do while on social media sites – communicate or post
their own or shared content. I decided to do this because I thought that some
strong primary data would help prove (or potentially go against) academic ideas
from sites such as OFCOM. Through my data collection I found that, overall,
students used social media to communicate more as they increased in age and
posted significantly less than they did communicate on a daily basis. I also
found that students said they often used sites for around 2hr 30 mins and over
a day – especially the older students. To find my secondary research, I had
help from my mentor in advising me on which organisations, news sites and opinion
posts I should research, because as a media teacher my mentor had a broad
knowledge of which would be best to fit my research. My mentor suggested that
OFCOM would be a good place to start, due to them being the main regulators of different
types of media. This led me to the OFCOM report (and news reports from the guardian
and BBC news) which can be seen in my EPQ project and on my blog.
One of the skills I wanted to practice during the data
collection of my project was to practice how to independently conduct
controlled survey including young people, and to ensure that the data was sent
out fairly with no risk of ethical issues arising. I want to have this skill
because I wish to become a teacher in the future; surveying and ethically
asking questions to young people will be a key part in my future career. I also
strongly believe that social media and the internet in general play a strong
role in children’s development, mental health and well-being as it is so
prominent to all generations, and believe that, if used correctly, it can be a
huge influence on the way teachers can interest and inspire their students. Another
skill this project has helped me practice is video editing and sound control.
As my video is made in Microsoft PowerPoint, I had to learn independently how
to turn a Power Point into a video which could be used within a classroom
environment. This skill will definitely assist in my future career and may even
help in practicing the research in a future classroom, for example using
YouTube as a medium to upload exam content in an interesting way to ensure
students revise, or lesson planning with video elements implemented into it.
The final project was different to my initial ideas, as I
ended up surveying students on the sites they used and the length of time they
used them for – instead of focusing on the mental health aspects of social
media use. One of the things that I was successful in was the skills I managed
to learn and improve upon when completing the project. One in particular was
the use of Microsoft Excel to input all my data and create graphs to show my
data. I had used this programme before starting my project, however my skills
were limited when dealing with large amounts of data. Completing the project
enabled me to learn to manage large numbers of data, (113 surveys, all with 19
answers provided on every survey when including every social media site listed
in question 4) to turn that data into relevant charts to present my findings
within my finished project (pie charts for questions 1,2 & 3, with a bar
chart for question 4’s school total), and to ensure no data was missed off
whilst transferring from paper to spreadsheet (completed by adding totals for
each section of each question using the =SUM feature to ensure the amount of
data for each section was noted down in comparison to how many surveys there
were in that year group / the whole school, which saved time and ensured data
accuracy). One of the things I found difficult was the workload of the project
in comparison to the time available to me alongside A-Levels, part-time work,
and other lifestyle commitments. However, I believe that the work I completed
was sufficient in creating my final project, as the amount of secondary data
needed was small when compared to the depth of my primary research. I had to
work hard at ensuring to meet deadlines and make my project presentable and
effective.
To present my project, I firstly wanted to create a brief PowerPoint
to use as a pointer as to what I wanted to discuss with my audience. During the
presentation stage of my project, I mainly wanted to display my aims, why they
were useful to my further studies and to show my final project to an audience. There
was a slight issue in this, because of a slight technical issue which made the
voiceover of my video repeat certain phrases. However, to combat this, instead described the contents of the video,
the reason I chose to make it and why it would be useful to certain audiences,
such as parents who were unaware of what their children are doing on social media,
and how long they say they are on it.
If I were to complete this project again, I feel that I
would definitely stick to a stricter timetable of what research I should do and
when, because I feel that the project would have been more enjoyable to
complete rather than being like an extra burden alongside other things in my
day-to-day life. I also feel that I would have completed more primary research,
possibly in the sense of more in-depth, audio interviews with one or two
students from each year group, so I could get an audio input from students
other than just my own voice describing the data in my project. This would
allow me to have a personified input into the primary data and project itself,
possibly making it more interesting to its viewership. I also feel that I would
alter the visual content of the project video, because even though the data
visuals may be interesting to some, I feel a younger audience would appreciate
a more visually appealing approach, with potentially some humour added to keep
audiences interested in the video.
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