CEP 806 Inquiry

Project 1:
Do Students Really
“Know” How to
Evaluate Internet
Websites
Michelle Perry
 Motivation Behind the
Inquiry
 Would the current generation be able to
survive without the internet?
 To the majority of the students in my classes,
the internet is an irreplaceable part of their
lives
 Parents don’t need to “ground” a child anymore,
they take away their technology
 They use it for research, connect with other
people, communicate, publish their ideas, and
many times they exploit themselves on unfiltered
sites such as facebook and myspace
 Students are accustom to the “instant
gratification” of the internet

 Do students really know how to evaluate
all the information that the internet
provides for them?
 What type of “readers” of the internet are
they? (Bertram C. Bruce 2001)
 Exegetical
 Dogmatic

 Agnostic

 Dialectic

 How can teachers help students to become

“dialectic” readers?
 When students perform research on the
internet are they aware of the different
search engines available or do they just
use the “easy” or “popular” one?
 What criteria do students employ to evaluate
the websites that the search engine
provides?
 Do they ever use more than one search
engine?
 Do they base their choice of search engine on
what they are researching?
 Predictions
 The most popular search engine used
will be Google
 This should not be surprising since it is now
a word → to “google” something
 Most students will not use wikipedia as
a source
 Teachers in the district have emphasized
the unreliability of wikipedia as a resource
 Students will demonstrate some
understanding as to how to evaluate a
website
 Other classes have had them use the internet
to perform research and have provided
guidelines for use
 Students may have developed their own set
of guidelines to evaluate a website since the
internet has become such a major part of
their lives
 Why is it important that my
students develop an
understanding of how to
evaluate a website?
 In science, as in many fields, there is a
constant influx of information.
 The students need to be able to research
information from reliable and current
sources.
 Since they will perform most of their research
on the internet, they must be able to
evaluate the websites they encounter
 Even if students do not choose a science
career, it is important that they learn how
 Description of Inquiry Plan
 The students will start the project by
answering the following questions on a
worksheet:
 You are about to research stem cell
technologies, what search engine would you
use?
 Start your search. Write the first 10 websites
listed below:
 Which one of the websites might you use for
your report and why?
 Now go to the two science databases listed
on the Media Center website. Repeat your
search and list the first 10 articles.
 After doing their own search, the students
would work with their lab group to
develop a rubric to evaluate websites.
 This would incorporate both group discussion
and full class discussion
 Our guest speaker will be our head librarian
who will discuss with the students what they
should be looking for in their evaluations
 The students will finalize their rubric

 I will compile their rubrics into a final “class”

evaluation form for internet evaluation which
we will use for our first report.
 Summary of Data
 Class background:
 Biology I class
 All sophomores
 Supposedly similar backgrounds in internet research
 And the winner is …

Every student selected Google as their search

engine
When asked why…
Because it is “easy”
 I was surprised by some of their logic as
to which websites to use from Google:
 “I would use stemcells.nih.gov because it
seems to be a real site about the topic”
 “I would use [various sites] because it has
.edu so it is an educational site”
 “all of them so I have a better chance of
finding what I want”
 “www.stemcells.com becuse it is the first
website brought up and it is usually a sign of
accuracy”
 “Contractassay.com because it has big words
which mean smarter people with more
information”
 Others provided deeper insight into their
choices:
 “I would use www.sciencedaily.com because
the scientists reporting to this website are
from Harvard and Columbia. I believe that
these Universities are up-to-date on
technology and research and they could
provide me with more information.”
 “I’d use advancedcell.com because it
provides me with scientific papers, research,
and updates. It also has many links. The site
has a great fact sheet and a gallery. There
are a lot of available options and links.
 Another student had a similar comment on the site
and also noted that the research was “actually
 When looking at the library databases
(EBSCO Science and Facts On File) the
students noted that most if not all of the
articles could be used
 Seemed to be from a “valid” source
 Current

 “straight forward”

 “All about stem cells”

 “Has all the information I need for a report”

 “Scientists wrote the articles”

 “All of the articles have titles which go along

with the topic of my research.”
 From here we started to discuss how we
could “really” evaluate the sites and they
were quick to offer criteria:
 Credentials of the website owner
 Accuracy of the information

 Currency of information?

 Validity

 Students were quick to offer terms, but

most could not provide explanations
when they first started working in their
groups
 First going group to group and then as a
class discussion, it was realized that
students knew what they might look for,
but they did not know what it necessarily
meant.
 When I asked one group what they would
look for under credentials, one student
responded “I don’t know because I don’t
know what credentials are.”
 None of the groups could completely describe
what should be present if a website was
“valid”
 Most defaulted on saying that the information
present was “valid” – I continued to ask what that
 As our discussions continued, the
students came to realize many of the
items listed in the article “Searching the
Web: New Domains for Inquiry” by
Bertram Bruce (1999)
 Anyone can make a website
 Not all information on the web is relevant

 Commercial websites are supported by

people who want to make money
 Not all websites are kept up-to-date

 It is easy to copy information found on the

web
 Impact of the librarian as guest speaker
 The students were prepared to ask questions
since we had already discussed the topic
 She helped clarify different categories for
evaluation
 Authority
 Accuracy

 Objectivity

 Currency

 Coverage

 The students were prepared to be active

participants during her presentation and she
clarified many of the questions they still had
 Using the five categories presented by
the librarian, we were able to create a
rubric with which the class can evaluate
websites.
 Emergent Ideas, Questions,
and Lessons about How
Students Find and Use
Internet Information
 Students have been “drilled” on what to
look for in a site since elementary
school.
 This does not mean that they understand
how to evaluate a site, it may just mean that
they have memorized the different items
 Many of them do not use the criteria that
they have been repeatedly exposed to and
rely on the website URL
 Students, like most Americans, like the
“easy” or “popular” route of internet
search engines.
 Many of them just go to the first site listed
not realizing that sometimes companies pay
to be priority listed
 Unless another is provided by a teacher, the
students stick to the search engine they are
comfortable with
 Some students may have achieved
becoming agnostic readers of the web,
however, most of them have not become
dialectic readers
 Since the internet is such a major part of
students’ lives, it is important that they
learn to view the information critically.
 Not just memorize what they were told they
should do but to understand what they
should do with every website they encounter
 Credits
 Logos from
 www.Google.com
 http://Yahoo.com
 http://Lycos.com
 http://About.com
 http://Space.com
 http://Livescience.com

 Graphics from
 Microsoft office clipart