Seth Warburton and Dr. Geoff Wright, TEE

The purpose of this study was to compare Utah high school television production teaching practices and standards to industry television production standards and techniques. The intent of this study was to evaluate (a) if schools are teaching appropriate television production standards and techniques; (b) if the limited equipment schools can provide adequately prepare students to work in an environment that requires such diverse technology; (c) what the relative impact teaching television production to high school students is having on students in regards to career exploration, preparation, academic achievement, and so forth.

Many high schools have adopted television production courses that teach about script writing, communication skills, technical production, etc. In Utah, 80 percent of high schools have some form of a television production course. Recently many school districts in Utah experienced budget cuts and they have begun to question the validity of certain subjects. This study will not only verify the importance of television production classes in Utah high schools but will also develop ways to better align these programs with industry standards.

With so many videos on the internet and television made by individuals with little or no experience, video production classes in Utah need to turnout students who can create professional videos that stand above non-professional videos in both production value and storyline. This can be done by focusing the state standards in a way that will inspire students to create professional videos that not only look good but have messages that can positively influence our nation.

Using quantitative and qualitative methodology, we studied the practices of current television production classes in Utah schools. This included assessing current curriculum taught in high school television production classes and studying how each class prepared the students to work in the video industry. We also studied how the equipment used by high schools differed from each other and how these differences prepared or hindered the growth of the student in the field of video production.

After interviewing teachers and observing classroom procedures we have found that while the current state standards unify the Utah TV production classes’ assessments and exams each class varied greatly in means of curriculum taught, equipment used, and overall emphasis on learning industry standards. The current state standards center on knowing basic audiovisual techniques but not knowing how to use industry standard HD cameras or using editing software, both of which are for any video production job. While some of the teachers we observed tried to incorporate these techniques, they do this by their own motivation since they are not found in the state standards.

A major problem is how different each video production classroom is and how it really depends on the teacher and their focus. One teacher only focused on providing video announcements for the school but not by using any equipment or techniques a normal news team would use. Another teacher used equipment that is no longer industry standard, perhaps causing students to have a difficult time transitioning to industry. While at first I assumed that the aspect of budget and equipment is out of the teachers hands I found that there were classrooms on the other side of the spectrum that had teachers finding innovative ways to get industry type equipment and software into their classrooms and set up a “real world” broadcasting scenarios and assignments for their students, regardless of budget. This was usually done through finding grants and being persistent in talking to the right people that resulted in acquiring the equipment they needed.

A bright spot in the study was how all of the teachers taught their students to be good, responsible people as they used the tool of video production. They all taught overarching morals and work ethic, a great boon to these students’ future life choices. This was very exciting to see and while it is important to the students’ lives we concluded that more effort is needed to help students in these classes prepare for the video production field.

For now this study has been halted after news that new standards were being published. It seems that the fact that the current standards are lacking and require revision was not just apparent to me. With that knowledge currently public, teachers whom I attempted to interview wished to wait to comment until the new standards were published. And while the information gathered has been thus far informative, the new standards may make this study obsolete. I have spoken with the authors and they do not wish to share the new standards until they are approved and published by the state. I have, however, voiced my concerns on finding ways to unify standards to coincide better with industry standards and hopefully, along with this study’s findings, this will make an important impact.

Even with this challenge that has arisen I hope to continue the research and finalize our study when the standards are published. I am excited to see what coincides with my own conclusions about the state standards and what has been improved. Above all I believe our findings have determined that TV production programs are important to student development and that they are a way to help students use current video technology for a positive purpose. I would like to thank the ORCA department for making this study possible.