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How Good Is This Page? Benefits and Limits of Prompting on Adolescents’ Evaluation of Web Information Quality
Author(s) -
MacedoRouet Mônica,
Potocki Anna,
Scharrer Lisa,
Ros Christine,
Stadtler Marc,
Salmerón Ladislao,
Rouet JeanFrançois
Publication year - 2019
Publication title -
reading research quarterly
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.162
H-Index - 90
eISSN - 1936-2722
pISSN - 0034-0553
DOI - 10.1002/rrq.241
Subject(s) - readability , notice , competence (human resources) , psychology , quality (philosophy) , information quality , affect (linguistics) , computer science , social psychology , information system , political science , philosophy , communication , epistemology , law , programming language
The authors examined adolescents’ detection of features that affect the quality of web information. In experiment 1, participants (12–16 years old) rated the goodness/usefulness of four web‐like documents for a simulated study assignment. Each document came with an issue that potentially undermined its quality. Two documents had source‐related issues (i.e., noncompetent author, outdated), and the other two documents had content‐related issues (i.e., topic mismatch, poor readability). Most students failed to notice the issues, including topic mismatch. The participants also produced inconsistent evaluations of topic match, readability, author competence, and currency. In experiment 2, students were prompted to assess each criterion separately. The participants distinguished poorer from better documents in relation to each criterion, except for author competence. The authors discuss these results in light of previous research on adolescents’ evaluation behavior, propose further avenues for reading research, and articulate recommendations for educational practice.