Development of speech culture of journalism students through interactive educational technologies

Abstract

In the context of the rapid digitalization of the media space and the increasing complexity of professional requirements for journalists, the aim of the study was to provide a theoretical justification and an experimental verification of the effectiveness of interactive educational technologies in the formation of journalism students’ speech culture. On the basis of journalism faculties of three humanities universities, a comprehensive pedagogical experiment was conducted during 2019-2023 with the participation of 342 students divided into control and experimental groups; the study employed system-activity and competence-based approaches, standardized tests of language norm proficiency, content analysis of media texts, expert assessments by editors and lecturers, participant observation of speech behavior in interactive classes, as well as methods of mathematical statistics (Student’s t-test, Mann-Whitney U-test, correlation and factor analysis). In the experimental groups, an author’s model was implemented, including case studies, debates, role-playing games, project-based work, podcasting, the flipped classroom , multimedia longreads, and collaborative digital text editing platforms. The results demonstrated a statistically significant increase in the proportion of students with a high level of the normative component of speech culture (from 11,9% to 34,2%) and a decrease in the proportion of those with a low level (from 38,8% to 12,4%) against the background of minimal changes in the control groups; a substantial improvement in communicative and pragmatic skills (logical and coherent speech, lexical richness, argumentation, stylistic appropriateness) was recorded, with an average score difference in favor of the experimental groups of 1,73-2,25 points on a ten-point scale. The motivational engagement index for studying speech-related disciplines in the experimental sample increased from 0,479 to 0,786 (a 64,09% growth), while in the control sample it rose only from 0,482 to 0,514. The synthesized data suggest that the integration of interactive technologies ensures the comprehensive development of cognitive, activity-based, and axiological components of speech culture, narrows the gap between theory and practice, and can be recommended for the modernization of journalism curricula and related humanities programs.