Adolescents’ credibility justifications when evaluating online texts

Research has shown that students differ in their abilities to evaluate the credibility of online texts, and, in general, many perform poorly on online evaluation tasks. This study extended current knowledge by examining students’ abilities to justify the credibility of online texts from different perspectives, thus providing a more nuanced understanding of students’ credibility evaluation ability. We examined how upper secondary school students (N = 73; aged 16 to 17) evaluated author expertise, author intention, the publication venue, and the quality of evidence when reading four texts about the effects of sugar consumption in a web-based environment. Additionally, we examined how students’ prior topic knowledge, Internet-specific justification beliefs, and time on task were associated with their credibility justifications. Students evaluated author expertise, author intention, the venue, and the quality of evidence for each text on a six-point scale and provided written justifications for their evaluations. While students’ credibility evaluations were quite accurate, their credibility justifications lacked sophistication. Inter-individual differences were considerable, however. Regression analysis revealed that time on task was a statistically significant unique predictor of students’ credibility justifications. Instructional implications are discussed.