Information discernment, mis-information and pro-active scepticism

Abstract

A participatory action research (PAR) approach was employed to investigate school students' information discernment capabilities. Placing school student participants at the centre of the research process enabled them to define the problem in their own words and begin to find solutions to the issue of how to choose good quality information. Findings confirmed the results of many studies that school students adopt a cognitive default position of trust and are relatively unquestioning when using information sources for their work (in this case the Extended Project Qualification or EPQ). Results also showed that with an appropriate embedded learning and teaching intervention, which includes aspects of information and digital literacy, school students adopt a cognitive questioning state, which leads to pro-active scepticism, enhancing their information discernment and in turn enables them to make better information choices. This has implications not only for school teachers and librarians but for educational policy makers also.

Information literacy and the Societal Imperative of Information Discernment

“…Given these finding we argue that it is imperative that we attempt to enable all people to gain higher information discernment capabilities. Previous research (for example Walton and2013;Shenton and Pickard, 2014;Pickard, Shenton and Johnson, 2014;Walton and Cleland, 2017;Walton et al, 2018) has shown that this is achievable. The next section outlines a possible way of delivering effective information discernment teaching and learning.…”

“…It also leads them to use a wide variety of information to explore more than one side of an argument. We know from previous research that this cognitive questioning state can be operationalised in young people by employing the appropriate learning and teaching intervention (Walton and Hepworth, 2011;2013;Walton, 2017;Walton et al 2018). This is discussed more fully in the next section.…”

“…Ourwork with 16-17 year old school children confirmed this. A survey we carried out revealed that they were more inclined to trust their parents than teachers, peers or the media (Walton et al, 2018).…”

“…The 16-17 year olds were working towards gaining their Extended Project Qualification (EPQ) 1 -a mini-dissertation in addition to their A level study. Walton et al (2018) provides a comprehensive reflection of these studies. The 18-19 year olds were working towards completing their first assignment and had to find good quality information about a sporting issue of their choice (see Walton & Hepworth, 2011 and 2013 for a more detailed account).…”

Using information science to enhance educational preventing violent extremism programs

“…This important factor is not an aspect examined in the ISCM. Through training, 16-17-year-old school students' initial lack of ID-who approached information in a trusting fashion; for example, using internet resources without regard to their provenance or quality (Walton, Pickard, & Dodd, 2018), could be enabled to adopt a cognitive questioning state, improving how they made judgments about the information they received (Walton & Hepworth, 2011). It is our contention that the ID framework presented in Figure 1.…”