International Journal of
Information and Education Technology

Abstract

We investigate the opinions of Japanese primary school teachers in terms of their perceptions of their pupils’ competencies regarding media information literacy at using social network services (SNS). Valid criteria to evaluate competencies were recently advocated by the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization, and 25 performance criteria items in three competence categories were selected for this study. In particular, participation competence of the middle level was used to measure the weight of teachers’ opinions of importance, and we introduced paired comparisons and the geometric mean method to calculate importance. As a result, communication competence was evaluated as being somewhat active, and monitoring competence was evaluated as being somewhat inactive. In addition, counter risk ability was recognized as the most important performance criterion item in participation competence. Based on a discussion, we reveal the need to develop greater competence to expand connection of users in SNS.