A new study has just been published in the Journal of Medical Internet Research about "health information literacy" that is very relevant to many of the ideas that we've talked about in class.
You can read the entire article here, but I just pulled out a couple of snippets from the abstract:
"Even though most students (89%) understood that a one-keyword search is likely to return too many documents, few students were able to narrow a search by using multiple search categories simultaneously or by employing Boolean operators. In addition, nearly half of the respondents had trouble discriminating between primary and secondary sources of information as well as between references to journal articles and other published documents. When presented with questionable websites on nonexistent nutritional supplements, only 50% of respondents were able to correctly identify the website with the most trustworthy features. Less than a quarter of study participants reached the correct conclusion that none of the websites made a good case for taking the nutritional supplements. Up to 45% of students were unsure if they needed to provide references for ideas expressed in paraphrased sentences or sentences whose structure they modified. Most respondents (84%) believed that their research skills were good, very good, or excellent. ...
Conclusions: While the majority of students think that their research skills are good or excellent, many of them are unable to conduct advanced information searches, judge the trustworthiness of health-related websites and articles, and differentiate between various information sources. Students’ self-reports may not be an accurate predictor of their actual health information competencies."
This corresponds to what I've seen in my own research with adolescents (15-19) and their abilities with search engines. In most instances, the young people I've talked to have a sense that their research skills are "good or excellent" yet they have difficulty critically analyzing the trustworthiness of various sources of information.
Something to think about: what has helped you the most to think critically about information you find on the web?
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