Improving college students’ fact-checking strategies through lateral reading instruction in a general education civics course

Abstract

College students lack fact-checking skills, which may lead them to accept information at face value. We report findings from an institution participating in the Digital Polarization Initiative (DPI), a national effort to teach students lateral reading strategies used by expert fact-checkers to verify online information. Lateral reading requires users to leave the information (website) to find out whether someone has already fact-checked the claim, identify the original source, or learn more about the individuals or organizations making the claim. Instructor-matched sections of a general education civics course implemented the DPI curriculum (N = 136 students) or provided business-as-usual civics instruction (N = 94 students). At posttest, students in DPI sections were more likely to use lateral reading to fact-check and correctly evaluate the trustworthiness of information than controls. Aligning with the DPI’s emphasis on using Wikipedia to investigate sources, students in DPI sections reported greater use of Wikipedia at posttest than controls, but did not differ significantly in their trust of Wikipedia. In DPI sections, students who failed to read laterally at posttest reported higher trust of Wikipedia at pretest than students who read at least one problem laterally. Responsiveness to the curriculum was also linked to numbers of online assignments attempted, but unrelated to pretest media literacy knowledge, use of lateral reading, or self-reported use of lateral reading. Further research is needed to determine whether improvements in lateral reading are maintained over time and to explore other factors that might distinguish students whose skills improved after instruction from non-responders.

Digital literacy is associated with more discerning accuracy judgments but not sharing intentions

“…Guess et al (2020) found that a brief intervention aimed at teaching people how to spot fake news significantly improved the ability to tell truth from falsehood, but not sharing intentions, in both American and Indian samples, and Epstein et al (2021) found that an even briefer version of the same intervention improved the quality of COVID-19 news Americans indicated they would share online (although this improvement was no greater than the improvement from simply priming the concept of accuracy). Relatedly, McGrew et al (2019), Breakstone et al (2021) and Brodsky et al (2021) found that much more extensive fact-checking training modules focused on lateral reading improved students' assessments of source and information credibility. These interventions were focused more on media literacy than on digital skills per se; and similarly, Hameleers (2020) found that a media literacy intervention with no digital literacy component increased American and Dutch subjects' ability to identify misinformation.…”

Cognitive Strategies and Textual Genres in the Teaching and Evaluation of Advanced Reading Comprehension (ARC)

“…Another action could involve the design of forms on advanced reading comprehension strategies, such as the case of checklists or others (Mohamadi, 2018;Yunusa and Umar, 2021). Finally, the implementation of online records and protocols for the instruction and cross-sectional evaluation of advanced reading comprehension and other generic and specific competences, as has been done with the citizen with lateral reading and checking fakes while reading information from various subjects and fields (Brodsky et al, 2021;Cabrera et al, 2021;Fandiño-Parra et al, 2021).…”

“…(García and García-Martín, 2021a,b;Graham, 2021;López et al, 2021;Robledo-Ramón and García-Gutiérrez, 2021). The same happens with citizen competence, where critical thinking represents 70% of the assessment of competence, which implies the resolution of citizen problems, which require a high dose of advanced reading comprehension, as in the case of the development of lateral reading strategies and contrast of facts in the face of hoaxes and fakes (Brodsky et al, 2021;Cabrera et al, 2021). It is evident that advanced reading comprehension plays a role in generic quantitative reasoning competence.…”

La Comprensión Lectora Avanzada a través de las Disciplinas: Variables Instruccionales y Psicoeducativas

“…2015; Koster et al, 2015;Robledo y García, 2018). En este sentido, estudios recientes sobre la competencia ciudadana en entornos internacionales diversos y específicos latinoamericanos, por ejemplo, ilustran la necesidad de trabajar la comprensión lectora con estrategias de contraste de hechos, o de lectura lateral, y que requieren grandes dosis de pensamiento crítico y que se evidencia con la necesidad de alto dominio de CLA (Brodsky et al, 2021;Cabrera et al, 2021;Fandiño-Parra et al, 2021).…”