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Abstract
How can information literacy (IL) skills be improved during one semester? The proliferation of information disorders—fabricated stories, misleading content, clickbait—requires skills beyond using a fake-news checklist. Students in an introductory political science course were asked to analyze a news story every week as a course objective to increase IL. Thirty sections of American Government & Politics were given versions of an assignment eventually named “News Analysis.” Class averages did not improve over time; instead, most semesters saw a negative correlation between the number of iterations of the assignment and the average class score. The instructor changed tactics multiple times to address these shortcomings, but deficiencies in IL reflected both instructor failure and systemic problems in higher education.
Disclosure statement
The author reports there are no competing interests to declare.
Notes
1 “Information literacy is the set of integrated abilities encompassing the reflective discovery of information, the understanding of how information is produced and valued, and the use of information in creating new knowledge and participating ethically in communities of learning (ACLR 2015 8).”
2 Wardle and Derakhshan (Citation2017) use the term “information disorder” to cover three types of problems: disinformation, misinformation, and malinformation. A description of each follows in the Literature Review.
3 Digital natives are individuals who adopted technologies as they were released or have grown up with them, largely considered Gen X and Millennials, born between 1965 and 1996 (Dimock Citation2019). Comfort with using digital technologies is typical. Younger generations also have this comfort but lack particular skills, e.g., in the use of spreadsheets, how to send well-composed emails, and, in my experience, how to take a screenshot on a personal computer. It is worth considering whether these new generations are truly “digital natives,” an offshoot, or an entirely new category. It is not within the scope of this study to argue about the nuances of this label, but “the digital depthless” will refer to those students born after the late 1990s who are comfortable with using digital hardware but without the skills of digital natives. See Eynon (Citation2020).
4 The checklist advises readers to check the 'currency,’ 'reliability,’ 'authority,’ 'accuracy,' and 'purpose' of reporting.
5 ‘The Southwestern Oklahoma State University Protection of Human Subjects Committee, upon review and receiving confirmation that data will be collected and analyzed at the class level (not the individual level) has determined that your study originally entitled: “Can News Literacy Be improved By Emphasizing Source Analysis? A study of introductory political science students” meets the 45 CRF 46.104(d)(1) exemption for educational practices and is therefore exempt from IRB review.’
6 Official withdrawals are noted on the roster. For me, an unofficial withdrawal meant that the student took no exams and performed no activity after the first quarter of the semester.
7 An English idiom indicating that the correct sequence of events was not followed.
8 Students received the following instructions with an in-class explanation. “You must post summaries and links to articles and respond to others related to American government and politics, either to Canvas or our class Twitter hashtag #xxxxxxx. See Canvas or handout [RV1] for more details.”
9 We often recognize that the first pancake off the griddle is imperfect. Despite having prepared the batter as we have countless times, preheated our persnickety griddle to its precise preferences, we might not get it right the first time. Is the batter too thick? Is the heat set too high? Thankfully, we can take the feedback from the first pancake and adjust our approach.
10 Students are asked to introduce themselves in a Discussion Post and often share these facts.
11 “Instructional scaffolding is a process through which a teacher adds supports for students in order to enhance learning and aid in the mastery of tasks. The teacher does this by systematically building on students’ experiences and knowledge as they are learning new skills (Iris Center Citation2023).”
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Heather L. Katz
Heather L. Katz is an Associate Professor of Political Science in the Department of Social Sciences at Southwestern Oklahoma State University in Weatherford, Oklahoma. In addition to her work on pedagogy, Dr. Katz studies the internet and politics, including questions on access, norms and human rights, and governance.