Assessing Contradictory Information
Effectiveness of a Program for the Development of Critical Thinking in Adolescents
Supporting Agencies
- Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación
Abstract
Information and communication technologies provide us with multiple sources and diverse information on the same subject, which makes it difficult to assess this information and draw conclusions from it. This article presents the results of an intervention program aimed at promoting critical thinking, focusing on teaching students to elaborate critical questions and enabling them to correctly select and evaluate the evidence presented in the texts. The study was carried out with four groups of secondary education students (2 control groups and 2 intervention groups) in a natural sciences course. The results show a greater ability to formulate critical questions, and a greater ability to correctly select and evaluate the evidence of the texts by participants in the intervention groups, compared to the students of the control groups. These results support the possibility of teaching students to assess the reliability of the information they read, which is a priority nowadays to help them develop critical thinking to face the multiple contradictory pieces of information at their disposal.
Downloads
References
Castells, N. García-Milà, M., Miralda, A., Luna, J., y Pérez, E. (2022), El razonamiento de los adolescentes para gestionar las noticias falsas. Educación XX1: Revista de la Facultad de Educación, 25(2), 291-313. https://doi.org/10.5944/educxx1.31693
Barzilai, S., Zohar, A. R., y Mor-Hagani, S. (2018). Promoting integration of multiple texts: A review of instructional approaches and practices. Educational Psychology Review, 30(3), 973–999. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10648-018-9436-8
Beck, I. L., McKeown, M. G., y Sandora, C. A. (2020). Robust comprehension instruction with Questioning the Author. Guilford Publications.
Cartiff, B. M., Duke, R. F., y Greene, J. A. (2021). The effect of epistemic cognition interventions on academic achievement: A meta-analysis. Journal of Educational Psychology, 113(3), 477-498. https://doi.org/10.1037/edu0000490
Cottrell, S. (2011). Critical thinking skills: Developing effective analysis and argument (2nd ed.). MacMillan.
Du, H., y List, A. (2020). Researching and writing based on multiple texts. Learning and Instruction, 66, 101297. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.learninstruc.2019.101297
Duncan, R. G., Cavera, V. L., y Chinn, C. A. (2022). The role of evidence evaluation in critical thinking: Fostering epistemic vigilance. En B. Puig, y M. P. Jiménez-Aleixandre (Eds.), Critical thinking in Biology and Environmental Education, Contributions from biology education research (pp. 75-92). Springer. https:/doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-92006-7_5
Ennis, R. (2018). Critical thinking across the curriculum. Topoi, 37(1), 165–184. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11245-016-9401-4
Fisher, D., y Frey, N. (2013). Better learning through structured teaching: A framework for the gradual release of responsibility (2nd ed.). ASCD.
Gierth, L., y Bromme, R. (2020a). Beware of vested interests: Epistemic vigilance improves reasoning about scientific evidence (for some people). PLoS ONE, 15(4), e0231387. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0231387
Gierth, L., y Bromme, R. (2020b). Attacking science on social media: How user comments affect perceived trustworthiness and credibility. Public Understanding of Science, 29(2), 230–247. https://doi.org/10.1177/0963662519889275
Gough, D. (2021). Appraising evidence claims. Review of Research in Education, 45(1), 1-26. https://doi.org/10.3102/0091732X20985072
Graham, S., y Hebert, M. (2011). Writing to read: A meta-analysis of the impact of writing and writing instruction on reading. Harvard Educational Review, 81(4), 710–744. https://doi.org/10.17763/haer.81.4.t2k0m13756113566
Herrero-Curiel, E., y La-Rosa, L. (2022). Los estudiantes de secundaria y la alfabetización mediática en la era de la desinformación. Comunicar: Revista Científica de Comunicación y Educación, 30(73), 95-106. https://doi.org/10.3916/C73-2022-08
Herrero-Diz, P., Conde-Jiménez, J., y Reyes-de-Cózar, S. (2021). Spanish adolescents and fake news: level of awareness and credibility of information. Culture and Education, 33(1), 1-27. https://doi.org/10.1080/11356405.2020.1859739
Hinton, P. R., McMurray, I., y Brownlow, C. (2004). SPSS Explained. Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203642597
Hruschka, T. M. J., y Appel, M. (2023). Learning about informal fallacies and the detection of fake news: An experimental intervention. PLoS ONE, 18(3), e0283238. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0283238
Kerlinger, F. N., y Lee, H. B. (2000). Foundations of behavioral research (4th ed.). Harcourt College Publishers.
Kiili, C., Lakkala, M., Ilomäki, L., Toom, A., Coiro, J., Hämäläinen, E., y Sormunen, E. (2022). Designing classroom practices for teaching online inquiry: Experiences from the field. Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy, 65(4), 297–308. https://doi.org/10.1002/jaal.1206
Kuhn, D., y Udell, W. (2007). Coordinating own and other perspectives in argument, Thinking & Reasoning, 13(2), 90-104. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13546780600625447
List, A., y Alexander, P. A. (2019). Toward an integrated framework of multiple text use. Educational Psychologist, 54(1), 20–39. https://doi.org/10.1080/00461520.2018.1505514
Lombardi, D., Bailey, J. M., Bickel, E. S., y Burrell, S. (2018). Scaffolding scientific thinking: Students’ evaluations and judgments during earth science knowledge construction. Contemporary Educational Psychology, 54, 184-198. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cedpsych.2018.06.008
Mateos, M., Martín, E., Cuevas, I., Villalón, R., Martínez, I., y González-Lamas, J. (2018). Improving written argumentative synthesis by teaching the integration of conflicting information from multiple sources. Cognition and Instruction, 36(2), 119-138. https://doi.org/10.1080/07370008.2018.1425300
Mayweg-Paus, E., Thiebach, M., y Jucks, R. (2016). Let me critically question this! Insights from a training study on the role of questioning on argumentative discourse. International Journal of Educational Research, 79, 195-210. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijer.2016.05.017
Miras, M. (2019). Leer para aprender integrando varias fuentes. En I. Solé (Coord.), Leer, comprender y aprender. Propuestas para favorecer el aprendizaje a partir de textos (pp. 123–146). Horsori.
Nussbaum, E. M., y Edwards, O. V. (2011). Critical questions and argument stratagems: A framework for enhancing and analyzing students' reasoning practices. Journal of the Learning Sciences, 20(3), 443-488. https://doi.org/10.1080/10508406.2011.564567
Pérez, A., Potocki, A., Stadtler, M., Macedo-Rouet, M., Paul, J., Salmerón, L., y Rouet, J. F. (2018). Fostering teenagers' assessment of information reliability: Effects of a classroom intervention focused on critical source dimensions. Learning and Instruction, 58, 53-64. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.learninstruc.2018.04.006
Rouet, J. F., y Britt, A. (2014). Multimedia learning from multiple documents. In R. E. Mayer (Ed.), The Cambridge handbook of multimedia learning (pp. 813–841). Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9781139547369.039
Solé, I. (2019). Textos y tareas de lectura. En I. Solé (Coord.), Leer, comprender y aprender. Propuestas para favorecer el aprendizaje a partir de textos (pp. 41–71). Horsori.Stevens, E. A., Murray, C. S., Fishstrom, S., y Vaughn, S. (2020). Using question generation to improve reading comprehension for middle‐grade students. Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy, 64(3), 311-322. https://doi.org/10.1002/jaal.1105
Tseng, A. S., Bonilla, S., y MacPherson, A. (2021). Fighting “bad science” in the information age: The effects of an intervention to stimulate evaluation and critique of false scientific claims. Journal of Research in Science Teaching, 58(8), 1152-1178. https://doi.org/10.1002/tea.21696
Vidal-Abarca, E., Gilabert, R., Martínez, T., Sellés, P., Abad, N., y Ferrer, C. (2007). Manual Test de Estrategias de Comprensión. TEC. Instituto Calasanz de Ciencias de la Educación.
Wilkinson, A., Reznitskaya, A., Bourdage, K., Oyler, J., Glina, M., Drewry, R., Kim, M., y Nelson, K. (2017). Toward a more dialogic pedagogy: Changing teachers’ beliefs and practices through professional development in language arts classrooms. Language and Education, 31(1), 65-82. https://doi.org/10.1080/09500782.2016.1230129
Copyright (c) 2024 Journal of Educational Research
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
The articles and scientific documents published in RIE abide the following conditions:
1. The Servicio de Publicaciones de la Universidad de Murcia (the publisher) has the property rights (copyright) of all the documents published and allows the reuse under the user’s license indicated in point 2.
2. All documents are published in the digital edition of RIE under a Creative Commons Reconocimiento-NoComercial-SinObraDerivada 3.0 España (legal document) license. These documents can be copied, used, distributed, communicated and explained publicly if: i) the author(s) and its original source of publishing (magazine, publisher and URL of the document) are cited; ii) it is not used for commercial purpose; iii) the existence and the specifications about this license are mentioned.
3. Auto-archive’s conditions. The authors are allowed and encouraged to digitally distribute the pre-print versions (a version before evaluation) and/or post-print (a version that it is already evaluated and accepted to its publication). This promotes circulation and distribution earlier and can increase the citations and significance within the academic community.
