Summary

The World Wide Web makes available to students an incredible range of primary sources that can be updated on a regular basis.  Without careful instruction, however, students may uncritically accept the information they locate, ignore print sources, and fail to synthesize the information they find.  This article describes five assignments that can be used to enhance students' ability to think critically about information sources and to integrate information into knowledge.  The assignments suggested can be integrated into courses in most subject matter areas.

 Introduction

The World Wide Web makes available to students an incredible range of primary sources that can be updated on a regular basis.  This stands in contrast to textbooks, which typically summarize primary information and are to some degree out-of-date by the time they are published.  Also, the information in these textbooks is “pre-filtered” due to the decisions made by the author and by the faculty member who chose the text, so that students seldom come into contact with unfiltered and, perhaps, contradictory information.  Yet this is precisely the kind of information students must learn to deal with to become effective professionals and citizens.

Being aware of the benefits to students of learning to locate relevant Web sites and working with primary sources, many faculty have given assignments which require students to identify and use Web resources.  They often discover, however, that students uncritically accept the information they locate, ignore print sources, and fail to synthesize the information they find.

Cognitive Development in College Students

Some of these difficulties are predictable from research on college student learning.  Perry (1970) found that many college undergraduates are at a level of intellectual development that he called dualism.  In the dualism stage, students see knowledge as truth or factual information.  They look to authorities to give them this truth and see learning as taking notes on the information and giving it back on tests.  Professors, authors of texts, or authors of Web pages may be seen as the authorities who provide them with this truth.  Through various challenges to this way of thinking, students may then progress to a level that Perry called multiplicity, wherein knowledge is equated to opinion and everyone . . . professors, students, textbook or Web authors . . . are all entitled to their own opinion.  Needless to say, students at the dualism or multiplicity  stages are not seen as good critical thinkers!

Students at a later stage of cognitive development, relativism, more closely approximate our view of a good critical thinker.  Students in this stage see knowledge as complexities that are influenced by perspective, assumptions, methods of inquiry and analysis, and use these methods to understand and evaluate complexities.  Interestingly, Perry and other researchers who have used his model to study the learning of college students have concluded that moving from one stage to the next is not simply a function of age or maturation, but results from cognitive challenges to a student’s current way of thinking.

Web Assignments to Develop Critical Thinking

Perry’s model, together with the insights of librarians who are concerned about the information literacy of our students, suggests that we might craft assignments using Web and print sources to help develop critical thinking skills.  It’s important, however, to support students during this process with a structure that will guide them in meeting the challenges of evaluating questionable or contradictory information and synthesizing information garnered from multiple sources, both electronic and print.

Comparing selected Websites in your discipline.  A first step might be to guide students in their exploration of Web resources in your discipline to demonstrate the range of information available and help them learn about agencies or organizations which provide information important to your field (Shrode, 1997).  You can provide a list of URLs for these Web sites, or create a Web site for your course with links to the selected URLs.  Be sure to provide a list of questions that will draw students’ attention to important differences among the sites.  Consider having students work in pairs or teams to complete the assignment so they can benefit from one another’s insights.

Comparing Websites having seemingly contradictory information.  A next step in the process of developing critical thinking might be to give an assignment requiring the comparison of two pre-selected Web sites in your field.  Comparing sites with seemingly contradictory information or sites with both accurate and inaccurate information can spark discussion on how to identify accurate information (Jacobson & Cohen, 1997).  Later, you can repeat the assignment, allowing students to pick a topic, identify multiple WWW sites, and compare and evaluate the information discovered.

 Evaluating an informational Website.  Providing students with a checklist for evaluating Internet sites will draw their attention to important considerations.  An excellent checklist for evaluating Informational Web Pages, developed by Jan Alexander and Marsha Ann Tate of the Wolfgram Memorial Library at Widener University, suggests questions related to the evaluative criteria of authority, accuracy, objectivity, currency and coverage.  The URL for this checklist is:
http://www2.widener.edu/Wolfgram-Memorial-Library/webevaluation/inform.htm (scroll down page to view checklist)

Alexander and Tate provide similar checklists for Advocacy Web Pages, Business/Marketing Web Pages, News Web Pages, and Personal Home Pages at:
http://www2.widener.edu/Wolfgram-Memorial-Library/webevaluation/webeval.htm

Comparing various print and electronic resources.  Another interesting assignment might be to have students locate several Web sources and several print sources on a given topic and compare them using basic criteria for evaluating all forms of information: authorship (Who wrote this?  What is the author’s basis for authority?), publishing body (Is the publisher recognized in this field?  Has the publisher screened the author’s manuscript?), point of view or bias, referral to and/or knowledge of the literature, accuracy or verifiability of details, and timeliness of information.  Elizabeth E. Kirk, of Johns Hopkins University, provides an excellent guide for evaluating these criteria at:
http://milton.mse.jhu.edu:8001/research/education/net.html

On another Web page, “Practical Steps in Evaluating Internet Resources,” Kirk provides helpful tips for investigating the author, publishing body, and timeliness of Website information using electronic means:
http://milton.mse.jhu.edu:8001/research/education/practical.html

Students’ discussion of their comparisons of print and electronic resources is likely to yield important insights concerning the amount of “filtering” and the availability of up-to-date information which is typical of each of these types of resources.

Comparing the content of various information resources.  A final assignment that directly evaluates the relative credibility and usefulness of resources might be to ask students to compare various print and electronic information sources on features such as intended audience, objective reasoning, and coverage.  In their tutorial guide, “How to Critically Analyze Information Sources,” Joan Ormondroyd, Michael Engle, & Tony Cosgrove of the Cornell University Library, suggest that information users address questions such as:  “Is this source too elementary, too technical, too advanced, or just right for my needs?” “Is the information covered fact, opinion, or propaganda?” “ Does the information appear to be valid and well-researched or is questionable and unsupported by evidence?” “Is the author’s point of view objective and impartial?”  “Does the work update other sources, substantiate other materials you have read, or add new information?”  “Is the material primary or secondary?”  A complete listing of their guidelines may be found by clicking on the “Content Analysis” link at the following URL:
http://www.library.cornell.edu/okuref/research/skill26.htm

Integrating Critical Thinking Assignments into your Class

The sample assignments described in the preceding section are sequenced according to level of information literacy required.  It may be tempting to think that one assignment will suffice.  Furthermore, it may seem that developing these evaluative skills would take too much time from your course content.  Consider, however, that such assignments explicitly introduce students to primary information sources in your discipline, engage them in discussion of course content, and teach them to think critically about this information.  Most students find these assignments interesting, and the skills that students develop in completing them are a sound basis for lifelong learning.

Each of the suggested assignments challenges students to consider the merits of various sources of information and to ferret out inaccuracies, bias, and contradictions.  These intellectual processes are at the heart of critical thinking.  At the same time, each assignment provides guidance so that the student is supported in moving to a deeper level of thinking.

Reference s

Jacobson, T.E., & Cohen L.B.  (1997, August/September).  Teaching Students to      Evaluate Internet Sites.  Teaching Professor, 11(7), 4.

Perry, W.G., Jr. ((1970). Forms of Intellectual and Ethical Development in the College      Years:   A Scheme.  New York: Holt, Rinehart, and Winston.

Shrode, F. (1997, June/July).  Untangling the Web for Students.  Teaching Professor,
11(6), 1,5.

About the Author

Dr. Dorothy Frayer is Associate Academic Vice President and Director of the Center for Teaching Excellence at Duquesne University.  Her doctorate is from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in the area of educational psychology.  For the past ten years, she has pursued a special interest in the use of technology to enhance teaching and learning in higher education, sharing her insights through print and electronic publications as well as regional and national presentations.  In addition to her work with the Center for Teaching Excellence, she co-directs Duquesne's Center for Distance Learning and co-chairs Duquesne's Teaching, Learning, and Technology Roundtable.