Navigating the digital narrows: teaching students to read critically on the internet

The use of the Internet as a source of information is growing, especially among young people. Reading on the Internet poses unique challenges as texts on the Internet feature unique organizational features such as hypertext linking and search engines that must be navigated by readers; multimedia elements such as audio, video, and images that must be interpreted; and lowered barriers to publication that allow almost anyone to publish information in this medium. This last feature presents an important challenge to readers as they must exercise important skills of evaluation and critical thinking while reading in order to make sound judgments about the credibility of sources they find on the Internet. This study examined two approaches to teaching these skills to high school students. One approach focused on using the traditional checklist to teach students criteria of evaluative judgments; the other approach focused on strategies of sourcing and corroborating as well as using Internet tools to help students make these judgments. The results showed that both instructional approaches were effective in boosting students' accuracy in making judgments. Those in the first instructional approach showed increased abilities to explain their decisions using traditional criteria of credibility, suggesting that a concrete tool like a checklist may help all students learn these skills more effectively.