Learning Leaders: Teachers or Youtubers? Participatory Culture and STEM Competencies in Italian Secondary School Students

Abstract

Youth is increasingly learning in non-conventional contexts, such as social networks or video platforms, courses, and tutorials. This research aims to diagnose the role of participatory culture, digital resources, social networks, and, specifically, YouTube, in learning processes and the acquisition of Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) skills, specifically in mathematics, also analyzing the role of youtubers and, in contrast, teachers, both learning leaders in the formation of these skills. In order to accomplish this, mixed methods (quantitative and qualitative) were used, based on a survey applied to 4845 Italian adolescents, as well as a content analysis of the videos and YouTube channel of the Italian educational influencer Elia Bombardelli, one of the most followed and best rated in this country. Also, an in-depth interview has been applied to 12 Italian secondary school teachers. Among the main findings, it is highlighted that all adolescents value YouTube videos as a key resource to improve their school performance, rating youtubers better than teachers. However, it is remarkable that in the processes of learning and acquisition of STEM competencies, they prefer to interact with teachers rather than with youtubers.

Relevance factors of mathematical education for sustainable development

“…5), as a system of mathematical phenomena, as a system of processes, a hardware model of mathematics, historical models of mathematics (phenomenological, personification, paradigmatic), etc. Various aspects of mathematics are revealed when teaching so-called "soft skills" [17], as well as implementing STEM-learning (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) [18,19,20,21] and other options for combining academic disciplines, for example, COMPASS (Coordinated Math-Physics Assessment for Student Success) [22]. It is noted that teaching mathematics is associated with comprehension-oriented learning of texts [23] (it is worth mentioning mathematical texts, whereas the plot problem does not actually relate to mathematics).…”

Realfooders Influencers on Instagram: From Followers to Consumers

“…Influencers in the post-digital era use their image to attract followers, engage and make them consume the products and services of its promoting brands. This whole network of influencing marketing [ 37 , 38 ], which is developed from social networks such as Instagram, is the key to ensuring the success [ 39 ] and the acquisition of economic benefits [ 40 ] of these opinion leaders and creators of the social imaginary [ 41 ]. This study on Realfooders support previous findings pointing out that social networks and their connections expose people to dishonest, aggressive, altruistic and collaborative attitudes at the same time, all of them supported and transmitted through connections [ 42 ].…”

Los dibujos animados de Peppa Pig y la construcción de la identidad en la infancia

“…Peppa Pig es una serie de dibujos animados ampliamente popular entre el público infantil. Tras la visualización, observación y finalización de este análisis de contenido mediático, podemos aventurarnos a catalogar la serie de dibujos animados Peppa Pig como la más consumida por el público infantil por encima de otras producciones realizadas por youtubers e influencers que impactan en la mente adolescente (Pérez-Torres, Pastor-Ruíz, & Abarrou-Ben-Boubaker, 2018;Gil-Quintana, Malvasi, Castillo-Abdul, & Romero-Rodríguez, 2020). No se trata de una producción con fines didácticos y no debería ser empleada para el consumo mediático sin acompañamiento familias de las niñas y niños de 3 a 6 años, al presentar un contenido subliminal que no se corresponde para el óptimo desarrollo de la identidad.…”