There are clear differences in the way written information on health issues presents research findings. In some cases, the source of a piece of information (e.g. "expert professor") is highlighted to emphasize its credibility and relevance. In other cases, the impact of a certain argument is stressed by avoiding hints on tentativeness such as "mostly" or "up to now." This article examines whether and how far such differences influence laypersons' comprehension of the contents provided. In an experimental setting, 157 laypersons were asked to read an online article on a new approach to preventing influenza. The texts manipulated whether there were (a) hints on the source of information and (b) lexical hints on the tentativeness of the information (hedges). After reading the text, participants were asked to write an essay reporting their opinion on the topic. Their argumentation on vaccination was assessed with content analysis and their attitudes toward vaccination were surveyed with a questionnaire. Results indicated that when lexical hints were given, tentativeness led participants to focus more on the actual information in the text. Additionally, decisions more strongly favored the direction implied in the text when the source of the medical information was not reported. Consequences for the way health information should be presented to laypersons are discussed.

Many urgent problems that societies currently face—from climate change to a global pandemic—require citizens to engage with scientific information as members of democratic societies as well as to solve problems in their personal lives. Most often, to solve their epistemic aims (aims directed at achieving knowledge and understanding) regarding such socio-scientific issues, individuals search for information online, where there exists a multitude of possibly relevant and highly interconnected sources of different perspectives, sometimes providing conflicting information. The paper provides a review of the literature aimed at identifying (a) constraints and affordances that scientific knowledge and the online information environment entail and (b) individuals' cognitive and motivational processes that have been found to hinder, or conversely, support practices of engagement (such as critical information evaluation or two-sided dialogue). Doing this, a conceptual framework for understanding and fostering what we call online engagement with scientific information is introduced, which is conceived as consisting of individual engagement (engaging on one's own in the search, selection, evaluation, and integration of information) and dialogic engagement (engaging in discourse with others to interpret, articulate and critically examine scientific information). In turn, this paper identifies individual and contextual conditions for individuals' goal-directed and effortful online engagement with scientific information.

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The study presented here examines how interacting with a more capable interlocutor influences use of argumentation strategies in electronic discourse. To address this question, 54 young adolescents participating in an intervention centered on electronic peer dialogs were randomly assigned to either an experimental or control condition. In both conditions, pairs who held the same position on a social issue engaged in a series of electronic dialogs with pairs who held an opposing position. In the experimental condition, in some dialogs, unbeknownst to them (because dialog took place electronically), the opponent was a more capable ("expert") adult. Dialogs in the control condition were only with peers. Argumentation strategies of the experimental group who argued with the "expert" showed immediate strategy improvements in their subsequent peer dialogs, improvement absent in the control group (Cohen's d ¼ 1.12). In particular, the experimental group showed greater use of counterargument in general

Abstract. (Future) teachers should acquire skills in sourcing science-related information online, so they can use evidence appropriately in their pedagogical practice. To successfully use such evidence, it is vital that teachers critically question their selection of online information. Based on findings from collaborative learning, we hypothesized that collaboration promotes teachers' critical elaboration of their selection of online educational information. Additionally, collaboration allows for social comparison and may thus impact teachers' self-efficacy in seeking information. In a 2 × 2 mixed-design study with the between-participants factor reasoning (individual vs. collaborative) and the within-participants factor self-reported information seeking self-efficacy (pre vs. post the reasoning task), each of N = 83 future teachers individually sought online information regarding the educational use of mobile phones in classrooms. This constituted a realistic search on the Internet, in a natural setting. Based on each participant's particular search, s/he was asked to select the online sources that s/he perceived relevant for reasoning whether mobile phones should be used in class. To foster reflection on how they selected information, participants were asked either to reason individually (individual group, n = 33) or to chat collaboratively (collaboration group, n = 50 in 25 dyads) about their selections. Participants in both groups reported higher information seeking self-efficacy after the reasoning task. Yet participants who collaboratively reflected on their selections more frequently showed elaborated reasoning behavior, than did participants in the individual group. Nonetheless, participants in both groups referred to certain criteria that guided their selection (i.e., criteria related to the information, the provider of information, or media) with the same frequency. Considering the potential benefits and challenges of collaboration, we discuss the findings in terms of how to promote future teachers' ability to critically reflect on their selection of online educational information.