Lateral reading: College students learn to critically evaluate internet sources in an online course

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic has forced college students to spend more time online. Yet many studies show that college students struggle to discern fact from fiction on the Internet. A small body of research suggests that students in face-to-face settings can improve at judging the credibility of online sources. But what about asynchronous remote instruction? In an asynchronous college nutri-tion course at a large state university, we embedded modules that taught students how to vet web-sites using fact checkers’ strategies. Chief among these strategies was lateral reading, the act of leaving an unknown website to consult other sources to evaluate the original site. Students im-proved significantly from pretest to posttest, engaging in lateral reading more often post interven-tion. These findings inform efforts to scale this type of intervention in higher education.