Teaching Sourcing in Upper Secondary School: A Comprehensive Sourcing Intervention With Follow‐Up Data

Abstract

In this quasi‐experimental study, the authors examined the effects of an intervention designed to teach upper secondary school students to take source information, such as author expertise, into consideration when selecting, processing, and using textual resources to complete particular multiple‐document literacy tasks. The intervention centered on a contrasting cases approach framed by authentic curriculum‐based classroom activities and was implemented over six weeks by teachers who had participated in professional development seminars. The findings demonstrated that students who had participated in the sourcing intervention placed more value on source information when selecting texts, invested more time and effort in processing the texts they selected, and more frequently attributed textual ideas to their respective sources compared with students who had participated in typical classroom activities instead. These effects were observed on far transfer tasks in which students worked with multiple documents on different topics in different situational contexts for different purposes, and were sustained over a period of 5.5 weeks. The discussion highlights the uniqueness of the current intervention work and centers on the aspects of the sourcing intervention that likely promoted these broad, sustainable, and transferable sourcing skills in students. Attention is also directed to several possible lines of future research in this area.

The Role of Internet-Specific Justification Beliefs in Source Evaluation and Corroboration During Web Search on an Unsettled Socio-Scientific Issue

“…Future research, for instance, could examine the effects of instructional interventions that aim at strengthening Internet-specific beliefs in justification by multiple sources and justification by authority on individuals’ source evaluation and corroboration behaviors during Web search as well as on the learning outcomes associated with such behaviors. Recently, several intervention studies showed that interventions targeting learners’ source evaluation or confronting learners with conflicts across documents can strengthen (a) beliefs in justification by multiple sources (Ferguson et al., 2013; Kammerer et al., 2015) or (b) actual source evaluation and corroboration behaviors or comprehension outcomes (e.g., Bråten, Brante, et al., 2019; McGrew, 2020; for recent reviews, see Brante & Strømsø, 2018; Bråten, Stadtler, et al., 2018; Kammerer & Brand-Gruwel, 2020). However, future studies should examine both epistemic beliefs and behaviors in conjunction as well as their potentially mediational relationship.…”

Profiles of warm engagement and cold evaluation in multiple-document comprehension

“…The number of switches between information units from different texts indicated the degree of content integration. This way of measuring content integration across multiple texts was developed by Britt and Sommer (2004) and has been validated in a number of more recent studies (e.g., Bråten, Brante, & Strømsø, 2019;Bråten et al, 2018a;Gil, Bråten, Vidal-Abarca, & Strømsø, 2010). For example, if a written product contained seven information units altogether, and the first four information units came from one text and the next three information units came from another text, this would count as one switch and indicate poor content integration.…”

A review of technologies for collaborative online information seeking: On the contribution of collaborative argumentation

“…This strategy may be effective and efficient, but only when proper hints are used and the seeker’s information needs are satisfied in a timely and efficient way (Bromme and Goldman 2014 ; Rieh et al 2016 ). In this sense, a crucial factor for seeking online information successfully is that the information seeker needs to critically reflect on their seeking behavior and sourcing strategies (e.g., Bråten et al 2019 ; Forte 2015 ; Rieh et al 2016 ; Pérez et al 2018 ; second author and first author submitted ). While students in a training on sourcing online information did initially use and check for information about the trustworthiness of the provider of information, they did not critically reflect on what they found from the trustworthiness check (Brante 2019 ).…”

“…While students in a training on sourcing online information did initially use and check for information about the trustworthiness of the provider of information, they did not critically reflect on what they found from the trustworthiness check (Brante 2019 ). However, in educational interventions that encouraged students to not only identify and assess trustworthiness criteria but also critically reflect on the sourcing of information, students more elaborately integrated information about the perceived trustworthiness of the provider (Bråten et al 2019 ; Pérez et al 2018 ).…”

“…Although these trainings focused on promoting individual students’ sourcing competencies, it is possible that integrating elements of collaborative argumentation during the sourcing process might stimulate “additional” and “deeper” critical reflection as well as more elaborated reasoning (second author and first author submitted ). Building on the potential of reasoning activities, collaborative argumentation should play a central role within information seeking and source evaluation processes, as it may not only facilitate more successful engagement with the information, but it may also promote explicit and critical questioning of the sourcing of information as well as the trustworthiness of information providers and media in online contexts (e.g., Bråten et al 2019 ; Pérez et al 2018 ; second author and first author submitted ). Based on these considerations, in the following we outline approaches on computer-mediated collaborative learning to emphasize how collaboration from a psychological–pedagogical perspective may contribute to seeking online information successfully.…”