Evaluating Information How to incorporate information literacy into English classrooms
Can YOU tell fact from fake?
What’s up with “fake news”? ● Why is this issue at the forefront of so many civic discussions? ● What are attitudes you see about “fake news” or “mass media” in general in your classroom? Describe your students’ ● healthy/unhealthy information seeking behaviors. ● In what ways are you currently teaching about this issue?
What do we know about how students think about news and information? In academic contexts, 66% of college students use the library for research. In personal research, 56% of college students rely on social media. Most students have some level of distrust for the media’s accuracy, independence, and fairness. 36% of college students say “fake news” has made them distrust any news. Source: Project Information Literacy, October 2018, The News Study Executive Summary.
The research “The first state that a user goes through for judging the credibility of online information is evaluation of surface credibility, which involves a consideration of such surface characteristics as appearance / presentation and information organization, as well as interface design elements such as interactivity, navigability, and download speed. This is true even for highly motivated users…” -Sundar, 2008
“Subjects were observed to make choices cont’d among various information sources . . . [by] satisfying their information needs to quickly select sources whose convenience made them ‘ good enough .’” e h t , s e i t s t e n r e n t i g n s i s e s s s e -Connaway et al, 2011 a i t n l i e a u h W q n t “ a t r o p m g i n t s i s o o m o h e c e n r i h t o r f d e k o o l ] e s h t t n e a t d h u t s t e r [ e w o s e t y c r s u a o s e t , e d n n r f i e t o n t i y s a ” e . s e s r e e c w c s a e o c r t u y s o s a e d “77 % of sampled student n a , d n a s t r e d n u populations said that they were 3 1 0 ‘extremely likely’ to use Google to 2 x , a i F - start research for their assignments.” -Kean et al, 2015
Features of web articles ● Author credentials Hyperlinks that actually source facts ● and statistics ● Content that matches claims ● Advertisements that cater to specific viewpoints ● Graphs and visuals that support the argument
Principle 1: Define your information need ● What is my information need? What kind of information will fulfill this need? ● ● What is my writing task and what kind of information do I need to complete it? ● Where do I go to find the best information for my research context? Teaching ideas: compare/contrast different information need scenarios; give students multiple source types and assess which best fits an information need; have students discuss where they normally go to find information, why they go there, and teach them other places they could go to answer their questions
Principle 2: Information creation as a process ● What are different source types and how are they created? How does the way information is created affect its value in different contexts ● and to different audiences? ● What kinds of content creation processes are there? ● Does the way a source is created affect its authority? How so? How do you figure out what kind of information creation process a source went ● through? Teaching ideas: compare/contrast source types with guiding questions; analyze an audience and what kind of a source would be persuasive for that audience; model how to assess a source's creation process
Principle 3: Information corroboration habits ● How can I decide if the information is trustworthy? If a source seems fishy, how can I use other sources to prove/disprove it? ● ● How do information professionals (journalists, librarians) decide whether something is credible? Teaching ideas: Credibility indicators: author, correctly sourced info, balanced argument, horizontal (or lateral) reading; Fact-checking websites: mediabiasfactcheck, politifact, allsides; Expert fact-checking: looking at what outside sources say, finding multiples sources that agree
Lesson Planning Focus on one of our main principles: 1. Defining an information need 2. Information creation as a process 3. Information corroboration habits Create a lesson plan OR assignment sheet dealing with this principle. Perhaps it is an assignment that will go along with a research paper; perhaps it is an in-class discussion you will have; perhaps you can fit it in with a media literacy unit. Share and discuss your ideas with a small group
Works Referenced / Further Reading Caulfield, Mike. Web Literacy for Student Fact-Checkers. PBPRESSBOOKS. Digital Download: https://webliteracy.pressbooks.com/ Connaway, Lynn S., Timothy J. Dickey, and Marie L. Radford. “ ‘ If it is Too Inconvenient I'M Not Going After it:’ Convenience as a Critical Factor in Information-Seeking Behaviors.” Library & Information Science Research. vol. 33, , 2011, doi://doi.org/10.1016/j.lisr.2010.12.002. Faix, Allison. “Assisting Students to Identify Sources: An Investigation.” Library Review. vol. 63, 2014. https://www.emeraldinsight.com/doi/full/10.1108/LR-07-2013-0100 Head, Alison J and Michael B Eisenberg. "Truth be Told: How College Students Evaluate and use Information in the Digital Age." Project Information Literacy Research Omstotite , 2010, http://dev.journalistsresource.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/PIL_Fall2010_Survey_FullReport1.pdf. Head, Alison J, John Wihbey, P. Takis Metaxas, Margy MacMillan, and Dan Cohen, “How Students Engage with News: Five Takeaways for Educators, Journalists, and Librarians.” Project Information Literacy Research Institute, 2018, http://www.projectinfolit.org/uploads/2/7/5/4/27541717/newsexecutivesummary.pdf Kean, Cheryl, et al. "Students' Choice and Evaluation of Information Sources at the University of the West Indies, Mona Campus." New Library World , vol. 117, no. 3/4, 2016, pp. 279-288 , https://search.proquest.com/docview/1766267708?accountid=4488. Otero, Vanessa. 2018. What Exactly Are We Reading? 3.0 https://www.adfontesmedia.com/the-chart-version-3-0-what-exactly-are-we-reading/ Sundar, S. S. "The MAIN Model: A Heuristic Approach to Understanding Technology Effects on Credibility." Digital Media, Youth, and Credibility , vol. 73100, 2008. Wineburg et al. “Civic Online Reasoning.” Stanford History Education Group . https://sheg.stanford.edu/civic-online-reasoning. Accessed October 19, 2018.
Contact Elise Silva Writing Programs Librarian elise_silva@byu.edu 801-422-7089 Jessica Green Research & Writing Center Specialist jessica_green@byu.edu 801-422-1165
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