Can Students Evaluate Online Sources? Learning from Assessments of Civic Online Reasoning

To be an informed citizen in today's information-rich environment, individuals must be able to evaluate information they encounter on the Internet. However, teachers currently have limited options if they want to assess students' evaluations of digital content. In response, we created a ra...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inTheory and research in social education Vol. 46; no. 2; pp. 165 - 193
Main Authors McGrew, Sarah, Breakstone, Joel, Ortega, Teresa, Smith, Mark, Wineburg, Sam
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Routledge 03.04.2018
Subjects
Civics
College Students
Computer Software
Critical Literacy
Decision Making
High School Students
Information Seeking
Information Sources
Internet
Middle School Students
Politics
Protocol Analysis
Reading Comprehension
Student Attitudes
Student Evaluation
Task Analysis
Technological Literacy
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Summary:To be an informed citizen in today's information-rich environment, individuals must be able to evaluate information they encounter on the Internet. However, teachers currently have limited options if they want to assess students' evaluations of digital content. In response, we created a range of short tasks that assess students' "civic online reasoning"--the ability to effectively search for, evaluate, and verify social and political information online. Assessments ranged from paper-and-pencil tasks to open Internet search tasks delivered via Google Forms. We outline a process of assessment development in which middle school, high school, and college students in 12 states completed tasks. We present a series of representative tasks and analyses of trends in student performance. Across tasks and grade levels, students struggled to effectively evaluate online claims, sources, and evidence. These results point to a need for curriculum materials that support students' development of civic online reasoning competencies.
ISSN:0093-3104
2163-1654
DOI:10.1080/00933104.2017.1416320