ON DEMAND: A Conceptual Approach for Teaching Students How to Evaluate the Credibility of Information Sources

Abstract

The ability to evaluate the credibility of information sources is an important information literacy skill that students rely on to access the knowledge needed for learning. However, many students fail to develop this capability and scholars have called for new approaches to develop students’ information literacy skills. In contrast to existing credibility evaluation approaches, which often ask students to apply lists of questions to determine if information sources are credible, this presentation proposes a conceptual approach that can be used to teach students how to evaluate the credibility of information sources. This presentation integrates prior research to develop a conceptual framework to evaluate the credibility of information sources. This presentation also discusses an instructional technique for implementing the credibility evaluation framework in coursework using an enhanced bibliography. By asking students to show how they use the framework to make decisions to include or exclude information sources, this technique allows educators to provide process-oriented feedback that considers both gullibility errors (including information that is not credible) and incredulity errors (excluding credible information).