Between trust and mistrust: Source evaluation behaviours of Brazilian and French adolescents searching for scientific information on the Web

Abstract

In this qualitative study, 41 adolescents from Brazil and France were asked to conduct web-based searches for science-related information. Different search contexts and current socio-scientific issues were used in order to represent a variety of situations that adolescents are confronted with in their everyday life. Subsequently, they were interviewed about their individual searches. We sought to answer three questions: (a) What types of sources do Brazilian and French adolescents access in their searches? (b) Which evaluation criteria do they use to select the sources they access? (c) Do their source choices differ according to the search context? The results reveal that, regardless of search context, the participants demonstrated trust in news sources, and mistrust towards official sources, mostly as a function of the topic. Receiver-related criteria were particularly relevant for the Brazilian adolescents when selecting the sources, while the French participants based their choices more on parameters related to the content. Results suggest how previous knowledge and interest on the topic can influence teenagers’ choices.