Evaluating Information How to incorporate information literacy into - - PowerPoint PPT Presentation

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

• rganization, as well as interface design elements such as interactivity,

navigability, and download speed. This is true even for highly motivated users…”

• Sundar, 2008

cont’d

“77 % of sampled student populations said that they were ‘extremely likely’ to use Google to start research for their assignments.”

• Kean et al, 2015

“Subjects were observed to make choices among various information sources . . . [by] satisfying their information needs to quickly select sources whose convenience made them ‘good enough.’”

• Connaway et al, 2011

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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