‘It Goes Around the World’ : Children’s Understanding of the Internet

The Internet has become an important literacy environment, even for children. Therefore, building the foundations for their critical engagement with online information should start when they first enter school. One way to start is to help children build an understanding about the complexities of the Internet environment. The present study aimed at increasing our knowledge about children’s understanding of the Internet as a technical and social environment. It also explored how children perceive the trustworthiness of online information. The participants included 30 children aged 7–9 years. The children were interviewed and the data was analysed using content analysis. We share the results f…

Hyvinvointi-, hius- ja kauneusalan ammatteihin opiskelevat kriittisinä nettilukijoina

Tutkimuksessa selvitettiin ammatillisen koulutuksen opiskelijoiden (hyvinvointi-, hius- ja kauneusala) kriittistä nettilukutaitoa. Lisäksi tarkasteltiin aikaisemman tiedon, tekstien lukemisjärjestyksen ja perustelutaitojen yhteyttä siihen, kuinka hyvin opiskelijat osasivat arvioida luotettavia (varmentaminen) ja epäluotettavia (kyseenalaistaminen) nettitekstejä sekä erottaa luotettavat tekstit epäluotettavista. Tutkimukseen osallistui 82 opiskelijaa, joista valtaosa oli 15–18-vuotiaita. Opiskelijat lukivat ja arvioivat kaksi luotettavaa ja kaksi epäluotettavaa tekstiä sokerin vaikutuksista. Opiskelijat arvioivat kirjoittajan asiantuntijuutta, tarkoitusperiä, julkaisupaikkaa ja evidenssin la…

Lukiolaiset yksilöllisinä ja yhteisöllisinä internetlukijoina

Transmediating argumentation : Students composing across written essays and digital videos in higher education

This comparative study examined how university students built an argument in written essays and multimodal digital videos, and how their argumentation transmediated across these two mediums. Data analysis involved 1) analysis of content in both written essays and digital videos; 2) the development of transmediation visualizations to elucidate how ideas were transformed from essays into videos; and 3) multimodal analysis to understand the communicative affordances and constrains for argumentation with each medium. The findings revealed that the most common type of content in both essays and videos was supportive argumentation; however, the videos did not include any counter-argumentation. St…

‘It Goes Around the World’ – Children’s Understandingof the Internet

The Internet has become an important literacy environment, even for children. Therefore, building the foundations for their critical engagement with online information should start when they first enter school. One way to start is to help children build an understanding about the complexities of the Internet environment. The present study aimed at increasing our knowledge about children’s understanding of the Internet as a technical and social environment. It also explored how children perceive the trustworthiness of online information. The participants included 30 children aged 7–9 years. The children were interviewed and the data was analysed using content analysis. We share the results f…

Las citas como práctica del uso de las fuentes : las citas de fuentes en línea seleccionados por los estudiantes en sus trabajos

This study examined upper secondary school students’ citations of self-selected online sources in their essays. Students (n = 140) conducted online inquiry about either effects of social media on people’s quality of life (SM) or allowance of genetic manipulation of organisms (GMO). Students, working either individually or in pairs, explored online sources with the help of a graphic organizer, after which they composed their essays. To capture the quality of citations identified in the essays, they were evaluated in terms of accuracy and richness of source features. Further, regression analysis was used to examine the effect of topic, grade level and work mode on the number and quality of ci…

Sourcing on the internet: Examining the relations among different phases of online inquiry

This study examined students’ engagement in sourcing throughout online inquiry, that is, when they specified the information need, formulated search queries, evaluated online texts, and composed a written product. Participants were 167 upper secondary school students. Students completed an online inquiry task in a restricted online environment that utilized authentic online texts. Students’ prior topic knowledge and reading fluency was measured and controlled for in the analysis. The results showed that students engaged in sourcing even in the earliest phases of online inquiry. A sequential regression analysis indicated that the more frequently students engaged in sourcing in specifying the…

Exploring the Collaborative Synthesis of Information During Online Reading

This descriptive study sought to understand the complexities of integrative processing during collaborative online reading. Student pairs constructed a collaborative understanding while reading online information about a controversial issue by connecting, combining and organizing information that originated from prior knowledge, self-selected online texts, and discussions during an online inquiry task. Thirty-eight students from an upper secondary school in Finland worked in pairs to read online information and write an essay with the help of an argument graph tool. Primary data sources consisted of: prior knowledge; discussions; notes recorded with a graphic representational tool; video ca…

Motivationaaliset ulottuvuudet tutkivassa nettilukemisessa

Tutkimuksessa tarkasteltiin kuudesluokkalaisten nettilukemisen motivationaalisia ulottuvuuksia ja niiden yhteyttä tutkivan nettilukemisen tehtävässä menestymiseen. Tutkimukseen osallistui 426 kuudesluokkalaista oppilasta. Nettilukemisen motivationaalisia ulottuvuuksia mitattiin Yhdysvalloissa validoidulla mittarilla. Tutkivan nettilukemisen taitoja arvioitiin verkkopohjaisella tehtävällä, jossa oppilaat tutkivat energiajuomien terveysvaikutuksia. Tehtävä mittasi oppilaiden tiedonhakutaitoja, arviointitaitoja, taitoa laatia synteesi usean nettitekstin pohjalta sekä taitoja muodostaa ja kommunikoida perusteltu kanta tutkimastaan asiasta. Konfirmatorisessa faktorianalyysissä havaittiin neljä n…

University Students as Composers of a Digital Video

This paper introduces a university course in which digital video composing was used as a study method. The aim of the course was to empower future teachers to use digital and multimodal literacy practices in their own teaching. Students in education, 13 in total, participated in the course on digital literacies. The course achievement was measured with the task in which students composed a video in small-groups. The students’ videos were supposed to convince a pedagogical target group about the usefulness of a teaching method or need for a reform. In the last meeting, student’s videos were watched and the contents of the videos were discussed. The experiences on composing a digital video we…

Lukiolaisten vieraalla kielellä lukemisen strategiat

Students’ evaluation of information during online inquiry: Working individually or in pairs

Varying information quality and an increase of misinformation on the Internet accentuates the importance of supporting students’ competencies to critically evaluate information. This study compared how individuals and pairs of secondary students worked to evaluate the quality of online information across two inquiry topics. Two similar studies were conducted with 140 Finnish (Study I) and 52 US (Study II) students. Students were asked to conduct an online inquiry and then write an essay about one of two topics: allowing the genetic modification of organisms (GMO) or the effects of social media on people’s quality of life (SM). Students worked either individually or in pairs. Their work was …

Promoting sixth graders’ credibility evaluation of Web pages: An intervention study

Abstract This study investigated whether a teacher-led intervention program on online inquiry improved sixth graders' performance in a credibility evaluation task. Students (N = 342) were divided into two conditions, an intervention group (190 students) and a control group (152 students). The intervention program (21 × 45 min lessons) was implemented during a six-week course as a part of normal schoolwork. The program included explicit teaching of online inquiry skills: searching for information (3 lessons), evaluating credibility of information (3 lessons), and synthesizing information (3 lessons). In addition, the skills taught were applied in two online inquiry projects comprising 12 les…

An Online Inquiry Tool to Support the Exploration of Controversial Issues on the Internet

This paper describes a theoretically informed Online Inquiry Tool designed to support the exploration of controversial issues on the Internet. The tool’s design is grounded in principles associated with theories of online research and comprehension, argumentation for learning, representational guidance, and cognitive load. The purpose of the tool is to help students organize, monitor, and regulate several complex cognitive activities likely to present challenges during online inquiry. Supports are embedded into the digital tool to help students plan their information search around a controversial issue, identify supporting arguments and counterarguments related to this issue, critically eva…

Designing Classroom Practices for Teaching Online Inquiry : Experiences from the Field

Students face several challenges when asked to locate relevant and credible information from the internet. This article introduces three principles for designing online inquiry lessons and documents what we learned from five language arts teachers from Finland who implemented and provided feedback on a learning unit framed in those design principles. Teachers implemented a researcher-designed online inquiry unit in nine upper secondary school classrooms. The unit included four 75-minute lessons sequenced to support the location, evaluation, and synthesis of information students encountered in an online inquiry task. Teachers’ diaries revealed their impressions of the unit, problems encounte…

Sixth graders’ selection and integration when writing from multiple online texts

AbstractThis study examined students’ ability to select relevant ideas from multiple online texts and integrate those ideas in their written products. Students (N = 162) used a web-based platform to complete an online inquiry task in which they read three texts presenting different perspectives on computer gaming and wrote an article for a school magazine on the issue based on these texts. Students selected two snippets from each text during reading and wrote their article with the selected snippets available. The selected snippets were scored according to their relevance for completing the task, and the written products were scored according to their integration quality. The results showed…

Examining the structure of credibility evaluation when sixth graders read online texts

Background Previous research indicates that students lack sufficient online credibility evaluation skills. However, the results are fragmented and difficult to compare as they are based on different types of measures and indicators. Consequently, there is no clear understanding of the structure of credibility evaluation. Objectives The present study sought to establish the structure of credibility evaluation of online texts among 265 sixth graders. Methods Students' credibility evaluation skills were measured with a task in which they read four online texts, two more credible (a popular science text and a newspaper article) and two less credible (a layperson's blog text and a commercial tex…

Assessing reading and online research comprehension: Do difficulties in attention and executive function matter?

This study evaluated the relation between sixth graders' (N = 426) teacher-rated difficulties in attention and executive function (EF) and their comprehension skills. Reading comprehension was assessed with a multiple-choice task and online research and comprehension (ORC) with a problem-solving task. The analyses were controlled for gender, reading fluency and nonverbal reasoning. To investigate differences in students' performance between the tasks, comprehension skills in the multiple-choice task were also controlled for in the ORC task. Structural equation models showed that teacher-rated attention and EF difficulties were related to students' performance more in the problem-solving tas…

Argument graph as a tool for promoting collaborative online reading

This study explored how the construction of an argument graph promotes students' collaborative online reading compared to note-taking. Upper secondary school students (n = 76) worked in pairs. The pairs were asked to search for and read source material on the Web for a joint essay and either construct an argument graph or take notes during online reading. The data consist of transcription protocols of student pairs' discussions and joint essays. The study indicated that argument graphs may be useful tools when teachers want students to pay attention to the argumentative content of online sources and to consider relations between arguments. Additionally, with argument graphs, teachers can su…

Orchestrating 21st century learning in higher education : A perspective on student voice

For universities to meet the 21st-century learning needs of today's students, it is important they allow students to take an active role in developing pedagogy and sharing their perspective. This paper introduces design-based research aiming to develop a pedagogic approach to support technology-enhanced learning practices at the university level with the focus on teacher orchestration of learning activities and student voice. Drawing from the perspectives of teachers and students who participated in a course focused on learning and 21st-century competencies, four main elements indicating student voice and technology-enhanced pedagogy are presented: increased interaction among university com…

Literacy Skills and Online Research and Comprehension : Struggling Readers Face Difficulties

The present study evaluated the extent to which literacy skills (reading fluency, written spelling, and reading comprehension), together with nonverbal reasoning, prior knowledge, and gender, are related to students’ online research and comprehension (ORC) performance. The ORC skills of 426 sixth graders were measured using a Finnish adaptation of the Online Research and Comprehension Assessment. Results of a structural equation model showed that these ORC skills were divided into six highly correlated factors, and that they formed a common factor in ORC. Altogether, these predictor variables explained 57% of the variance in ORC. Reading comprehension, along with gender, was the strongest p…

Literacy skills and online research and comprehension: struggling readers face difficulties online

The present study evaluated the extent to which literacy skills (reading fluency, written spelling, and reading comprehension), together with nonverbal reasoning, prior knowledge, and gender, are related to students’ online research and comprehension (ORC) performance. The ORC skills of 426 sixth graders were measured using a Finnish adaptation of the Online Research and Comprehension Assessment. Results of a structural equation model showed that these ORC skills were divided into six highly correlated factors, and that they formed a common factor in ORC. Altogether, these predictor variables explained 57% of the variance in ORC. Reading comprehension, along with gender, was the strongest p…

Students evaluating Internet sources – From versatile evaluators to uncritical readers

The Internet is a significant information resource for students due to the ease of access it allows to a vast amount of information. As the quality of the information on the Internet varies, it is important that students are able to evaluate such information critically. The aim of the study was to investigate how students evaluate Internet sources in an authentic learning task. Upper secondary school students ( n = 25) were asked to look for source material on the Internet in order to write an essay. They were asked to verbalize their thoughts during the material gathering process. Their verbalizations and actions on the Internet were recorded and analyzed. The five evaluation profiles eme…

Sixth graders evaluating online texts : self-efficacy beliefs predict confirming but not questioning the credibility

This study investigated how sixth graders’ credibility evaluation self-efficacy was associated with their ability to evaluate the credibility of online texts. Students (N = 265, Mage = 12.45) worked in a web-based environment, where they read and evaluated two more credible texts and two less credible texts that required confirming and questioning the texts’ credibility, respectively. Students were asked to evaluate the author’s expertise, the author’s benevolence, and the quality of evidence in each text. They were also asked to assess their credibility evaluation self-efficacy during the task. The structural equation model indicated that students’ self-efficacy was positively associated w…

Online Research and Comprehension Performance Profiles Among Sixth-Grade Students, Including Those with Reading Difficulties and/or Attention and Executive Function Difficulties

This study identified online research and comprehension (ORC) performance profiles of 436 sixth-grade students (206 girls) aged 12–13 years. We included learner groups with different learning-related difficulties and explored how students’ reading habits were represented in various performance profiles. First, students’ ORC performance was examined with a validated web-based assessment measuring their skills in locating, evaluating, synthesizing, and communicating information. Second, reading fluency and teacher-rated attention and executive function (EF) difficulty scores were used to form learner groups: (1) students with reading difficulties, (2) students with attention and EF difficulti…

Students' abilities to evaluate the credibility of online texts: The role of internet‐specific epistemic justifications

Previous evaluation studies have rarely used authentic online texts and investigated upper secondary school students' use of evaluation criteria and deep reasoning. The associations between internet-specific epistemic justifications for knowing and credibility evaluation of online texts are not yet fully understood among adolescents. This study investigated upper secondary school students' (N = 372) abilities to evaluate self-selected authentic online texts and the role of internet-specific epistemic justifications in students' evaluation performance when solving a health-related information problem. Students selected three texts with Google Custom Search Engine and evaluated their credibil…

Investigating elementary school students’ text-based argumentation with multiple online information resources

In this study, we explored how elementary school students used multiple information resources in responding to a text-based argumentation task asking them to research a set of online texts in order to state and justify their stance on a controversial health-related issue. Results showed that most students took a stance that was consistent with the majority of the information resources that they read, that they mainly drew on more reliable resources in their written task products, and that they justified their stance by providing one or more supporting reasons. Students relied much more on copying and paraphrasing content from the online resources than on integrating information within and a…

Rethinking Academic Literacies: Designing multifaceted academic literacy experiences for pre-service teachers

This manuscript introduces a multidimensional framework for academic literacies to help instructors become more aware of different aspects of literacies and how they might be used to plan and orchestrate meaningful, multifaceted literacy experiences in their classes. More specifically, this broad framework for literacy and learning explicitly considers the overlapping role of argumentation, digital inquiry, collaboration, and innovation as they are applied to continuously evolving disciplinary literacy practices. The framework is applied to a course designed for pre-service teachers that integrated several aspects of academic literacies and offered some pedagogical guidelines to support the…

Adolescents' credibility justifications when evaluating online texts.

AbstractResearch has shown that students differ in their abilities to evaluate the credibility of online texts, and, in general, many perform poorly on online evaluation tasks. This study extended current knowledge by examining students’ abilities to justify the credibility of online texts from different perspectives, thus providing a more nuanced understanding of students’ credibility evaluation ability. We examined how upper secondary school students (N = 73; aged 16 to 17) evaluated author expertise, author intention, the publication venue, and the quality of evidence when reading four texts about the effects of sugar consumption in a web-based environment. Additionally, we examined how …

Exploring the collaborative synthesis of information during online reading

Abstract This descriptive study sought to understand the complexities of integrative processing during collaborative online reading. Student pairs constructed a collaborative understanding while reading online information about a controversial issue by connecting, combining and organizing information that originated from prior knowledge, self-selected online texts, and discussions during an online inquiry task. Thirty-eight students from an upper secondary school in Finland worked in pairs to read online information and write an essay with the help of an argument graph tool. Primary data sources consisted of: prior knowledge; discussions; notes recorded with a graphic representational tool;…

Skillful Internet Reader is Metacognitively Competent

The purpose of this study was to investigate the interrelations between information searching, textprocessing, information evaluation, and metacognition when upper-secondary school students are using Internet as a source for an essay. Students (n = 24) were asked to search for source material from the Internet in order to write an essay on a given topic. They were asked to verbalize their thoughts while they were gathering their source material. Their verbalizations and actions were recorded and analyzed. The results indicated that students who had difficulties in locating relevant information had to monitor their orientation and keep track of what to do next. Skillful students, in contrast…

Orchestrating 21st century learning in higher education: A perspective on student voice

For universities to meet the 21st-century learning needs of today's students, it is important they allow students to take an active role in developing pedagogy and sharing their perspective. This paper introduces design-based research aiming to develop a pedagogic approach to support technology-enhanced learning practices at the university level with the focus on teacher orchestration of learning activities and student voice. Drawing from the perspectives of teachers and students who participated in a course focused on learning and 21st-century competencies, four main elements indicating student voice and technology-enhanced pedagogy are presented: increased interaction among university com…

A Performance-Based Test for Assessing Students’ Online Inquiry Competences in Schools

In this paper, we introduce a performance-based test for measuring adolescents’ competences in online inquiry. The test covers four competence dimensions: (1) searching and selecting relevant sources, (2) identifying the main ideas presented in the sources, (3) evaluating the credibility of the sources, and (4) synthesizing information across the sources. We implement a technological solution called NEURONE to carry out this routine. The scoring of the test data is demonstrated by presenting preliminary results of a case study. Finally, we discuss the strengths and limitations of the test.

Citing as a sourcing practice: students’ citing self-selected online sources in their essays (Las citas como práctica del uso de las fuentes: las citas de fuentes en línea seleccionados por los estudiantes en sus trabajos)

This study examined upper secondary school students’ citations of self-selected online sources in their essays. Students (n = 140) conducted online inquiry about either effects of social media on people’s quality of life (SM) or allowance of genetic manipulation of organisms (GMO). Students, working either individually or in pairs, explored online sources with the help of a graphic organizer, after which they composed their essays. To capture the quality of citations identified in the essays, they were evaluated in terms of accuracy and richness of source features. Further, regression analysis was used to examine the effect of topic, grade level and work mode on the number and quality of ci…

Exploring early adolescents’ evaluation of academic and commercial online resources related to health

This study assessed the ability of 426 students (ages 12–13) to critically evaluate two types of online locations on health issues: an academic resource and a commercial resource. The results indicated limited evaluation abilities, especially for the commercial resource, and only a small, partial association with prior stance and offline reading ability. Only about half (51.4%) of the students questioned the credibility of the commercial online resource and only about 19% of the students showed an ability to fully recognize commercial bias. Wide variation existed in students’ ability to evaluate online information, as approximately one-fourth of the students performed poorly when evaluating…

Näkökulmia tutkivan nettilukemisen opettamiseen

Tutkiva nettilukeminen on ongelmalähtöistä, tavoitteellista lukemista, jossa lukija etsii internetistä tietoa asettamiinsa kysymyksiin, arvioi löytämänsä informaation luotettavuutta, laatii synteesin useiden nettitekstien pohjalta ja kertoo oppimastaan muille (Leu, Kinzer, Coiro, Castek & Henry, 2013). Tutkiva nettilukeminen ei ole siten vain netissä surffailua tai yksittäisten faktojen tarkistamista vaan tavoitteellista, oppimiseen tähtäävää toimintaa. Tutkivalle nettilukemiselle on ominaista pitkäjänteisyys, asiaan paneutuminen ja netistä löydetyn informaation soveltaminen. Tutkiva nettilukeminen edellyttää yleensä monilukutaitoisuutta, koska internet on monipuolinen tekstiympäristö. Luuk…

Sixth graders’ evaluation strategies when reading Internet search results : an eye-tracking study

Eye-tracking technology was used to examine Internet search result evaluation strategies adopted by sixth-grade students (N = 36) during ten experimental information search tasks. The relevancy of the search result’s title, URL, and snippet components was manipulated and selection of search results as well as looking into probabilities on the search result components was analysed. The results revealed that during first-pass inspection, students read the search engine page by first looking at the title of a search result. If the title was relevant, the probability of looking at the snippet of the search result increased. During second-pass inspection, there was a high probability of students…

Online reading as an individual and social practice

Experiences in Digital Video Composition as Sources of Self-Efficacy Toward Technology Use

As teachers’ self-efficacy has been shown to be a crucial factor in technology integration, there is a need to understand the mechanisms that may raise teachers’ self-efficacy toward technology integration. This article seeks to understand what sources of self-efficacy hands-on experiences with technology may provide to pre-service teachers. The participants were 37 students who were taking a course on digital literacies, where they composed a digital video in small groups. The data consists of students’ individually written post-course self-evaluation reports. In the analysis of the reports, the authors identified text fragments that indicated either 1) sources of self-efficacy related to …

Teaching sourcing during online inquiry – adolescents with the weakest skills benefited the most

AbstractSourcing - identifying, evaluating, and using information about the sources of information - assists readers in determining what to trust when seeking information on the Internet. To survive in the post-truth era, students should be equipped with sufficient sourcing skills. This study investigated the efficacy of a teacher-led intervention aimed at fostering upper secondary school students’ (N = 365) sourcing during online inquiry. The intervention (4 × 75 min) was structured in accordance with the phases of online inquiry: locating, evaluating, synthesizing, and communicating information. During the intervention, teachers demonstrated why and how to source, and students practiced s…

Students’ Interpretations of a Persuasive Multimodal Video About Vaccines

The present study investigated students’ (N = 404) interpretations of the main message and use of modes in a persuasive multimodal video on vaccines. It also examined whether students’ topic knowledge, language arts grades, and self-identified gender were associated with their interpretations. Students analyzed a YouTube video in which two entertainers demonstrated the importance of vaccinating children. Students’ interpretations of the usefulness of vaccines varied in terms of quality of reasoning, which was associated with students’ topic knowledge. Notably, many students’ interpretations of the use of modes were incomplete, or they did not even mention certain modes in their response. Th…

Working on understanding during collaborative online reading

This study examines how students in Finland (16-18 years of age) constructed meaning and knowledge in a collaborative online reading situation. Student pairs ( n = 19) were asked to write a joint essay on a controversial issue. First, the pairs discussed the topic freely to activate their prior knowledge. Next, they gathered source material on the Internet. Finally, they composed a joint essay. The data were collected using an interaction approach to verbal protocol data, along with video screen captures. In the analysis, three units were employed: episodes ( n = 562) for describing online reading practices; utterances ( n = 944) for identifying collaborative reading strategies; and collab…

Argument graph as a tool for promoting collaborative online reading

This study explored how the construction of an argument graph promotes students' collaborative online reading compared to note-taking. Upper secondary school students (n = 76) worked in pairs. The pairs were asked to search for and read source material on the Web for a joint essay and either construct an argument graph or take notes during online reading. The data consist of transcription protocols of student pairs' discussions and joint essays. The study indicated that argument graphs may be useful tools when teachers want students to pay attention to the argumentative content of online sources and to consider relations between arguments. Additionally, with argument graphs, teachers can su…

Akateemiset tekstitaidot oppimisessa

Reading to Learn From Online Information: Modeling the Factor Structure

Identifying the factor structure of online reading to learn is important for the development of theory, assessment, and instruction. Traditional comprehension models have been developed from, and for, offline reading. This study used online reading to determine an optimal factor structure for modeling online research and comprehension among 426 sixth graders (ages 12 and 13). Confirmatory factor analysis was employed to evaluate an assessment of online research and comprehension based on a widely referenced theoretical model. Student performance reflected the theoretical constructs of the model, but several additional constructs appeared, resulting in a six-factor model: (a) locating infor…

Individual differences in the new literacies of online research and comprehension