Obstacles to Developing Digital Literacy on the Internet in Middle School Science Instruction

Colwell, Jamie; Hunt-Barron, Sarah; Reinking, David

doi:10.1177/1086296x13493273

Cited by 58 publications

(31 citation statements)

References 26 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Unclassified

Order By: Relevance

“…Another asked students to make inferences about a source's authority, motivations, and trustworthiness based on information about the source that was provided for them (Perez et al ., ). Other studies tabulated the number of website features students based website evaluations on (Walraven et al ., ) and measured students’ evaluations after students were prompted to consider the authorship and authority of an online article (Colwell, Hunt‐Barron, & Reinking, ; Leu et al ., ). In an exception, Wiley et al .…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Improving university students’ web savvy: An intervention study

McGrew

Smith

Breakstone

et al. 2019

Brit J of Edu Psychol

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Background Young people increasingly turn to the Internet for information about social and political issues. However, they struggle to evaluate the trustworthiness of the information they encounter online. Aims This pilot study investigated whether a focused curricular intervention could improve university students’ ability to make sound judgements of credibility. Sample Participants (n = 67) were students in four sections of a ‘critical thinking and writing’ course at a university on the West Coast of the United States. Course sections were randomly assigned to treatment (n = 29) and control conditions (n = 38). Methods We conducted a pre‐and‐posttest, treatment/control experiment using a 2 × 2 × 2 design (treatment condition × order × time) with repeated measures on the last factor. Students in the treatment group received two 75‐min lessons on evaluating the credibility of online content. An assessment of online reasoning was administered to students 6 weeks prior to the intervention and again 5 weeks after. Results Students in the treatment group were significantly more likely than students in the control group to have shown gains from pretest to posttest. Conclusions Results suggest that teaching students a small number of flexible heuristics that can be applied across digital contexts can improve their evaluation of online sources.

show abstract

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Improving university students’ web savvy: An intervention study

McGrew

Smith

Breakstone

et al. 2019

Brit J of Edu Psychol

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Survey results indicated that these preadolescent students were at least moderately skilled at navigating, reading, and writing online, but even when they did not know or did not indicate that they knew formal procedures for these types of Internet activities, they were creative in finding alternative methods for locating and sharing information online. Similarly, Colwell, Hunt-Barron, and Reinking's (2013) study regarding students' online reading comprehension found that students brought with them to the classroom online search practices that they had developed on their own outside of school. The researchers, too, found these procedures to be creative, although not always optimally productive, in searching for, locating, and evaluating information online.…”

Section: Combination Of Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

What Are Preadolescent Readers Doing Online? An Examination of Upper Elementary Students’ Reading, Writing, and Communication in Digital Spaces

2016

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

The online reading, writing, and communication practices of students have been of significant interest to literacy researchers and teachers throughout the last several years, as insights into what students are currently doing in and outside of school can inform what they can be expected to know and be able to do in digital environments. Yet, little is known about the online activities, perceptions, preferences, and skills of preadolescent students. The present study reports the performance of 1,262 fourth and fifth graders on the Survey of Internet Use and Online Reading. Results were analyzed to determine whether there are gender differences in preadolescent students’ Internet activities, perceptions, preferences, and skills. Findings from descriptive and comparative analyses of students’ responses indicate that (a) preadolescent students in this study are moderately skilled at online search, evaluation, and communication tasks, with females scoring significantly higher on digital tasks than males; (b) preadolescent students engage in many digital tasks more frequently in school than outside of school; (c) despite reporting a preference for using the Internet, preadolescent students believe that it is more difficult to use it than to read a book, and believe that they would learn more from a book than from the Internet; and (d) there is a significant gender difference in students’ skills and confidence related to digital tasks, and students’ perceptions of their own skills may not align with their achievement on digital skills–based tasks.

show abstract

“…'Authentic' learning focuses "on real-world, complex problems and their solutions" where students can utilise learning strategies including "using roleplaying exercises, problem-based activities, case studies, and participation in virtual communities of practice" (Lombardi, 2007, p. 2). Being able to utilise e-networked technology to collect, analyse, access information and data, and examine ambiguities (Colwell, Hunt-Barron, & Reinking, 2013) holds much potential for inquiry learning; however, this requires that teachers and students are aware of the affordances that such technology provides.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%