Three Continua of Online Credibility Strategies Used by Eighth Graders

This study explores differences among strategies used by eighth grade students with varying degrees of success in determining the credibility of an online website. A concurrent think-aloud protocol elicited verbal reports of what the students were thinking as they sought to determine the credibility of the site and screen recording software captured actions on the screen and voices of participants and researchers. Three types of students who were successful with the evaluation task (the Skeptic, the Rule Follower, the Rigid Thinker) and three types who were not (the Overly Impressionable, the Wanderer, and the Trust Seeker) were identified during multimodal data analysis and are presented in narrative form using direct quotes and descriptions of observed behaviors. We suggest these six profiles are distinct but not mutually exclusive and fall along three continua of strategies that led the participants to have more or less success with the task The first two continua (skepticism versus trust and rigid thinking versus overly impressionable) represent dispositions, or ways of being around information. The third continuum (rule-following versus wandering) is closely connected to information literacy skills. Implications how for how these profiles and continua might influence how to teach credibility assessment are provided.