Associations Between Online Instruction in Lateral Reading Strategies and Fact-Checking COVID-19 News Among College Students

Abstract

College students, and adults in general, may find it hard to identify trustworthy information amid the proliferation of false news and misinformation about the COVID-19 pandemic. In Fall 2020, college students (N = 221) in an online general education civics course were taught through asynchronous assignments how to use lateral reading strategies to fact-check online information. Students improved from pretest to posttest in the use of lateral reading to fact-check information; lateral reading was predicted by the number of assignments completed and students’ reading comprehension test scores. Students reported greater use, endorsement, and knowledge of Wikipedia at posttest, aligning with the curriculum’s emphasis on using Wikipedia to investigate information sources. Students also reported increased confidence in their ability to fact-check COVID-19 news. While confidence was related to perceived helpfulness of the assignments, it was only weakly associated with lateral reading. Findings support the effectiveness of the online curriculum for improving fact-checking.

Remote online learning outcomes in introductory psychology during the COVID-19 pandemic.

“…This association between reading comprehension and success in online coursework raises concerns about students' academic preparedness for college, and the need for instructional practices that support the development of literacy skills at the college level (Perin & Holschuh, 2019). Reading comprehension may be especially important for student success in online courses where instruction and other instructor-student communications are largely text based (Brodsky et al, 2021). Individual differences in reading comprehension abilities may also reflect other factors, such as the quality of secondary education (Stanley et al, 2018), as well as family and neighborhood socioeconomic factors.…”

Libraries Combating Disinformation: From the Front Line to the Long Game

“…Misinformation thrives in what these solutions encourage-vertical reading. Vertical reading is the habit of scrolling up and down a website to determine if the site's sources seem trustworthy, reading the "about page," scrutinizing the domain extension (e.g., .com [supposedly bad] or .org [supposedly good]), or checking to see if there are grammar mistakes (Breakstone et al 2021a;Brodsky et al 2021aBrodsky et al , 2021b. Propagandists exploit weak search literacy skills and seed the internet with problematic content designed to maximize search engine optimization .…”

Lateral reading on the open Internet: A district-wide field study in high school government classes.

“…In a study across three high school history classes, students improved from pre- to posttest after eight lessons over two months (McGrew, 2020). College students in both synchronous (Brodsky, Brooks, Scimeca, Galati, et al, 2021; Brodsky, Brooks, Scimeca, Todorova, et al, 2021; McGrew et al, 2019) and asynchronous courses (Breakstone, Smith, Connors, et al, 2021) improved in their ability to judge digital content—in some cases in as little as 150 minutes of instruction (McGrew et al, 2019). The present study is the first to implement a curriculum intervention across an entire urban school district.…”