Using Design Fiction to Develop Pupils’ Critical Inquiry Competence

Introduction

A growing body of research suggests that traditional educational methods from the industrial era have become inadequate for the new realities of the 21^st century (Scott & Friesen, 2013). As Barron and Darling-Hammond (2008) explain, “[t]oday’s employees must be able to communicate and collaborate, research ideas, and collect, synthesize and analyze information. They need to develop new products and to be able to apply different areas of knowledge to new problems and challenges” (p. 3). The nature of work has changed and continues to do so: we constantly change jobs and there are as many jobs that appear than disappear. We need to design new educational environments as well as new approaches to teaching and learning focused on the demands of life and work in the 21^st century.

In that respect, new skills are required to prepare every child for the life that awaits them. We can no longer provide passive transmission-based learning that emphasises memorisation and information storage. “Education today must focus on helping students learn how to learn, so they can manage the demands of changing information, technologies, jobs, and social conditions” (Barron & Darling-Hammond, 2008, p. 3). To become critical thinkers, students need to take part in complex and meaningful projects that engage them in more ‘authentic learning’, that is, projects and activities that connect them with real-world problems. Student tasks must have “an authenticity, [and a sense] that the work being done in classrooms is ‘real work’ that reflects the living realities of the discipline being taught” (Western and Northern Canada Protocol, 2011).

One approach to authentic learning is inquiry-based learning (IBL), a constructivist approach based on the scientific method where the overall goal is to build knowledge and make meaning of the world around us. IBL can take various forms depending on the topic, discipline, or students’ age but they share a vision of learning that enables critical thinking and use of knowledge in new situations. This article presents an educational program built on an inquiry-based learning model for media literacy purposes. We argue that this way of learning has helped students to develop their critical thinking abilities in terms of critical inquiry, i.e. they have developed a greater ability to question the media ecosystem as well as their media practices.

From Inquiry to Inquiry-Based Learning

A number of researchers argue that the principle of inquiry is at the heart of media literacy (Thoman et al., 2008). According to Cospérec (2018), the concept of inquiry refers to a type of systematic questioning that underlies the educational process, where citizens adopt a scientific attitude towards everything as opposed to a non-critical attitude. Inquiry is defined by Dewey (1938) as “the controlled or directed transformation of an indeterminate situation into one that is so determinate in its constituent distinctions and relations as to convert the elements of the original situation into a unified whole” (p.108). Modelled on the scientific method, the inquiry process consists in clarifying the problem in the problematic situation, formulating hypotheses, testing them, and acting on the solution.

Inquiry-based learning is the pedagogical approach using inquiry to investigate a subject matter. Rather than simply presenting established facts or giving a direct path to knowledge, IBL proposes to start from students’ questions and ideas. Kuhn et al. (2000) define it as “an educational activity in which students individually or collectively investigate a set of phenomena – virtual or real – and draw conclusions about it” (pp. 496-497). Often viewed as an approach to solving problems, IBL helps students develop their problem solving and critical thinking skills (Nesbit & Qing, 2014). This approach follows a general sequence of phases that form together an inquiry cycle. The educational literature outlines a number of inquiry models that describe the broad phases of inquiry. Pedaste et al. (2015) have summarized the core features of IBL and have developed a synthesized inquiry cycle that combines the existing inquiry models. They outlined five general inquiry phases: orientation, conceptualization, investigation, conclusion, and discussion (see figure 1).

To engage students in the inquiry process, media education scholars have built inquiry-based learning models with both fixed and flexible sets of questions (E. A. M. Schilder, 2014). For example, the National Association for Media Literacy Education (NAMLE, 2014) has constructed a list of key questions to analyze media messages, divided into three categories: authors and audiences, messages and meaning, representations and reality. According to Rogow (2011), “[i]n inquiry-based practice, students learn to use relevant questions to evaluate and analyze media messages and to reflect on the media they create” (p. 18). Teaching students to ask specific questions enables them to gain a more sophisticated understanding of media messages (Redmond et al., 2016, p. 57) and to develop their critical thinking. In this context, students can develop what I call in my PhD research a ‘critical inquiry competence’, which is a competence that enables them to ask relevant questions about digital media and technology with the objective of developing their critical thinking (Wuyckens, 2021).

A Critical Inquiry Method Based on Design Fiction

In the framework of my doctoral research, I propose using design fiction in media education to engage pupils in a critical reflection and evaluation of digital media and technologies. Design fiction refers to a design practice that uses narrative structures to explore possible futures for technologies and questions people about the role and impact of new technologies on everyday life (Mitrovic et al., 2015). At the intersection of science fiction and speculative design, design fiction produces so-called ‘diegetic’ prototypes, i.e. prototypes that are situated in a fictional world (Kirby, 2010). The objective of design fiction is not so much to solve a problem by creating an object or service (which is the purpose of traditional design), but rather to materialize possible scenarios by creating fictional artefacts and then debate them (Dunne & Raby, 2013).

Based on inquiry-based learning models, I have developed a critical inquiry method, that is, a method which enables pupils to ask relevant questions about digital media and technology with the objective of developing their critical thinking. The critical inquiry method takes the form of an educational program that I have developed in collaboration with a Belgian non-profit association called Action Médias Jeunes. I set up a design-based research project that began in September 2018 in collaboration with the association and we have since conducted two projects that used design fiction in primary and secondary education.

The critical inquiry method combines classical approaches on inquiry-based learning and media education scholars’ key concepts models. On the one hand, I built the structure of the educational program based on IBL models to let pupils inquire the future through the practice of design fiction. On the other hand, I generated more and more complex questions amongst the pupils as they progressed in the inquiry process with the help of key questions (Schilder & Redmond, 2019). The next figure illustrates the structure of the program coupled with the five main phases of the Pedaste et al’s synthetized inquiry cycle (2015). The structure indicates that there have been two inquiry processes: based on a problem, pupils created first a prototype (see the left part of the figure) and reiterated the process by producing a narrative where they explored a new problem generated by their prototype (see the right part of the figure).

At the beginning of the educational program, pupils were first introduced to new technologies and design fiction. Considering the concerns of today’s society, activities were related to artificial intelligence and algorithms. Based on problems they experienced in their daily lives at school, on social networks or more generally in the field of communications, they then designed prototypes. In order to encourage them to ask questions from the beginning of the activities, a first set of cards accompanied them during this design thinking process and led them to ask questions about the production of their object. They were finally invited to present their objects to other pupils through Instagram stories, and performed product placement of others’ objects as influencers. The goal was to encourage pupils to ask questions about the producers of commercial technologies and videos as well as about the audience and the values.

In the fifth stage, a cycle of inquiry restarted, where pupils were required to go back to the conceptualization stage. At the beginning of this new inquiry cycle, pupils embodied various media in simulated press conferences and tried to find the different interests or flaws of the others’ objects. Based on the interests/flaws highlighted at the press conferences, pupils were invited to investigate the consequences of their object in 2030. The goal was particularly to confront them with new issues such as social justice, discrimination, and accountability. Activities included picking a new problem, completing a new deck, and creating their storyline. The seventh step consisted in reviewing others’ comic books. This activity encouraged pupils to ask new questions on the representations, languages/semiotics, and interpretation. At this stage, the pupils had all the key concepts to develop a constructive review. At the eighth stage,  they were invited to go back into the present time by linking their productions (prototypes) and visions of the future (comic books) with current technological and societal issues.

Discussion: Media Literacy as a Field of Inquiry

Thinking media literacy along with inquiry allows us to get back to the roots of media education, that is, observing the world around us and questioning the way it operates while taking into account our own position into it. Using design fiction to build a critical inquiry method helps students develop a broader critical understanding, which addresses the textual characteristics of media alongside their social and ethical issues, and which raises a personal awareness of their own media practices. The ultimate goal is still to provide students with media literacy abilities but with another conception of media literacy:

Consider, for example, how teachers might respond if, rather than describing media literacy with a definition about accessing, analyzing, understanding and producing media, we said “media literacy education is about teaching students to ask – and find answers – to important questions”. This phrasing puts teaching and students, rather than media, at the center of the discourse. (Rogow, 2011, p. 17)

The current analysis of the data shows encouraging results for the mobilization of this kind of approach in media education. Coupled with the use of design fiction, the process of inquiry encourages students to question the media world and their relationship to new technologies. By projecting them into the near future, design fiction specifically helps them to free themselves from the constraints of the present and to open up discussion on societal issues.

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