Epistemic Beliefs and Googling

Abstract

With the introduction of internet as a source of information, parents have observed youngsters' tendency to prefer internet as a source, and almost a reluctance to learn in advance since "you can look it up when needed". Questions arise, such as 'Are these phenomena symptoms of changing beliefs about knowledge and learning? Is it at all possible to learn on a deeper level simply by looking up the basic facts, without memorizing them?' Within an existing line of investigation, epistemic beliefs have been described as a set of dimensions. Although internet-based information and internet as a source of information have been acknowledged, studies so far have not explored how dealing with internet-based information relates to other epistemic beliefs dimensions. To capture how users view internet-based information per se but also in relation to other epistemic beliefs, I suggest three new dimensions, out of which the most crucial is labelled 'Internet reliance'. Offloading memory using memory aids is not a new phenomenon but the 'Internet reliance' dimension indicates that especially internetreliant users may be confusing external information with personal knowledge, with all the risks it may entail. Besides including beliefs about learning, this study also challenges earlier assumptions regarding uncorrelated dimensions.

Epistemic beliefs and internet reliance – is algorithmic authority part of the picture?

“…Most of the subscales that were created from the anticipated items proved good internal consistency, and the inter-dimension correlations appeared similar to the inter-factor correlations reported in previous studies (e.g. Otting et al, 2010;Ståhl, 2019;Wood and Kardash, 2002, p. 252). This indicates that the epistemic belief measures used in this study are functional, also when used as computed subscale scores.…”

“…DeBacker et al , 2008). The participants responded to the statements on a six-point anchored disagree (1)–agree (6) scale that had been developed and used in a previous study (Ståhl, 2019). When developing the inventory, the item phrasings were tested in read-aloud sessions with both domestic and international students, and after data collection, the dimensions were extracted using exploratory factor analysis.…”

“…The factor extraction performed in a previous study (Ståhl, 2019) would have allowed using factor scores but at the cost of a strongly reduced number of cases. Therefore, we decided to compute subscale scores for the epistemic dimensions.…”