A relatively marginal subject around twenty years ago, the evaluation of information on the Internet is today a major issue for our society. The very large number of fraudulent, dubious or biased messages published every day on social networks and on the web in general makes everyone vulnerable to disinformation. We saw this with current topics such as vaccination against Covid-19 , the presidential elections in Brazil , or even the war in Ukraine .

If evaluation is more essential than ever for all citizens, from a very young age, it is also a complex skill. It requires knowledge of the rules for publishing on the Internet and the criteria for reliability of information, but also motivation and metacognitive skills, that is to say the ability to reflect on one’s actions and regulate them. These skills pose many challenges to Internet users and question the role of school.

Go beyond superficial clues

Let’s take the case of a fifth grade student who is instructed to find information on the causes of global warming on the Internet for a class presentation. After entering keywords into a search engine, he finds several seemingly interesting articles. One of them is entitled “Climatic zones: causes and consequences”. Research to which I was able to contribute shows that finding query keywords in the title of the article greatly increases the chances that the student will consider the article relevant to their search, even though the article -this does not cover its subject…

Up to a certain age and grade level, students are very easily influenced by superficial clues, such as the presence of keywords, the size and type of font used in search results pages. Towards the end of middle school, these effects diminish considerably, but other assessment challenges take over, such as not knowing what exactly to assess when asked to judge the reliability of a web page for a search.

Thus, in a study carried out among third graders in France and Germany , published in the journal Computers & Education , my colleagues and I showed that almost all of the participants do not pay attention to the source of information when asked to answer a question such as “Is aspartame bad for your health?” » from four web pages on the theme. They focus on the content of the articles, even though some sites have a notorious conflict of interest regarding the subject (for example, a manufacturer of sodas that contain aspartame).

When asked about the reasons for not paying attention to the source of the information, students mentioned the lack of explicit instructions from the teacher, the type of task and their personal motivation to find reliable information about the subject.

However, they are not insensitive or incapable of perceiving the issues linked to the source for the evaluation of the reliability of the information. When asked directly, they quickly perceive the conflict of interest behind certain sources. The problem is that the search for information and the daily consultation of social networks are not done with an adult nearby to ask these kinds of questions…

Should we apply the “check list” method?

What can schools do to help students develop skills in evaluating information on the Internet? The answer to this question is less obvious than it seems. There is in fact a multitude of educational methods, content and approaches available today on the Internet and in schools. However, most of these approaches lack empirical evidence of their effectiveness.

Up to a certain age and grade level, students are very easily influenced by superficial clues, such as the presence of keywords, the size and type of font used in search results pages. Towards the end of middle school, these effects diminish considerably, but other assessment challenges take over, such as not knowing what exactly to assess when asked to judge the reliability of a web page for a search.

Thus, in a study carried out among third graders in France and Germany , published in the journal Computers & Education , my colleagues and I showed that almost all of the participants do not pay attention to the source of information when asked to answer a question such as “Is aspartame bad for your health?” » from four web pages on the theme. They focus on the content of the articles, even though some sites have a notorious conflict of interest regarding the subject (for example, a manufacturer of sodas that contain aspartame).

When asked about the reasons for not paying attention to the source of the information, students mentioned the lack of explicit instructions from the teacher, the type of task and their personal motivation to find reliable information about the subject.

However, they are not insensitive or incapable of perceiving the issues linked to the source for the evaluation of the reliability of the information. When asked directly, they quickly perceive the conflict of interest behind certain sources. The problem is that the search for information and the daily consultation of social networks are not done with an adult nearby to ask these kinds of questions…

Should we apply the “check list” method?

What can schools do to help students develop skills in evaluating information on the Internet? The answer to this question is less obvious than it seems. There is in fact a multitude of educational methods, content and approaches available today on the Internet and in schools. However, most of these approaches lack empirical evidence of their effectiveness.

Effective information evaluation training requires solid theoretical foundations on the socio-cognitive processes of reading and understanding “documents” (texts, images, videos, etc.), as well as empirical evidence obtained through rigorous scientific studies and involving close collaboration between researchers and practitioners. This research has existed for several years, but it is not yet numerous enough to cover all the areas and educational issues related to the evaluation of information.

In my book Knowing how to search. For education in information evaluation , I review the scientific theories and studies carried out internationally in recent years on this subject. This is not an exhaustive review, but it covers a large number of studies and study syntheses showing that the challenges of information evaluation education can be overcome under certain conditions (e.g., provide structured exercises for evaluating information, create links between evaluation and other school activities such as reading and problem solving).

There is no miracle recipe, but a growing number of studies point to the need for explicit teaching of this skill at school, that is to say, teaching which combines phases of reactivation of prior knowledge, modeling, guided and independent practice of students. For example, the teacher can start from the students’ experience of false or erroneous information disseminated on the Internet, to explain to them the notion of a source of information and show step by step the steps for evaluating the source. Then, the students practice exercises partially solved by/with the teacher to gradually move towards independent exercises.

Imagine new forms of learning

The research points to the need to imagine new forms of collaboration between teachers from different disciplines, for example by identifying a corpus of texts in different disciplines that can lend themselves to information evaluation work. This is to show the importance of evaluation in all areas of knowledge, and at the same time its complexity because the evaluation criteria are not absolute, they require adaptation to the context.

The links between fundamental cognitive processes, such as the comprehension of texts, and the evaluation of information, which can be considered as a process of purposive or “functional” reading, to use the terms of the PISA survey of the OECD and the National Reading Observatory , a ministerial expert mission carried out in the early 2000s, are to be explored and developed in current research.

Evaluation is a skill that we hope to see applied not only to school tasks, but also to all everyday tasks that require particular vigilance regarding the quality and credibility of information. For this reason, involving students in the training of their peers, for example by encouraging them to lead workshops (for which they should be prepared) on the evaluation of information in social networks, is undoubtedly a promising avenue. to identify interesting and relevant situations for young people, and promote the involvement of all in this activity, evaluation, which is essential today.

Author Bio: Mônica Macedo-Rouet is a University Professor in Cognitive Psychology at CY Cergy Paris University