Källsortering på nätet- Om att vara källkritisk till Internet ur 9 gymnasieelevers perspektiv
Digital sourcesInternetSource critiqueEvaluationEducational responsibilityHigh school studentsInformation LiteracyInformation seekingCritical thinkingHumanitiesHumanioraSocial Sciences
This thesis examines source criticism and critical thinking among upper secondary school students in social science in three different schools in Sweden. Our particular focus lies in investigating the student's critical thinking skills and evaluation of digital sources when they work independently with different projects. How do students value and sort the information they find? We looked furthermore at what factors that may influence students in their evaluation of sources. Moreover, the purpose of this thesis to investigate how the student's critical thinking skills can be used as tools to become more information literate in a learning context. That is to say what purpose has source critique in the larger context of information literacy?We interviewed students in groups of three about information seeking, evaluation of digital sources and their view of how important the teacher is in their transformation into information literate individuals.Our results show that although students seem to be rather information literate their critical thinking skills when evaluating digital sources lack considerably. It appears to us that the teachers and librarians could do more to improve the student's knowledge into finding, evaluation and using digital information sources constructively. The school environment is an extremely dynamic environment and that is why it is of utter importance that teachers and school librarians follow and keep up to date with the fast going progress within Information- and Communication Technology.