Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Improving College Students’ Fact-Checking Strategies Through Lateral Reading Instruction In A General Education Civics Course, Jessica E. Brodsky, Patricia J. Brooks, Donna Scimeca, Ralitsa Todorova, Peter Galati, Michael Batson, Robert Grosso, Michael Matthews, Victor Miller, Michael Caulfeld

Publications and Research

College students lack fact-checking skills, which may lead them to accept information at face value. We report findings from an institution participating in the Digital Polarization Initiative (DPI), a national effort to teach students lateral reading strategies used by expert fact-checkers to verify online information. Lateral reading requires users to leave the information (website) to find out whether someone has already fact-checked the claim, identify the original source, or learn more about the individuals or organizations making the claim. Instructor-matched sections of a general education civics course implemented the DPI curriculum (N=136 students) or provided business-as-usual civics instruction (N=94 students). …