Students' abilities to evaluate the credibility of online texts: The role of internet‐specific epistemic justifications.

Previous evaluation studies have rarely used authentic online texts and investigated upper secondary school students' use of evaluation criteria and deep reasoning. The associations between internet‐specific epistemic justifications for knowing and credibility evaluation of online texts are not yet fully understood among adolescents. This study investigated upper secondary school students' (N = 372) abilities to evaluate self‐selected authentic online texts and the role of internet‐specific epistemic justifications in students' evaluation performance when solving a health‐related information problem. Students selected three texts with Google Custom Search Engine and evaluated their credibility. Students' evaluation performance across the three texts was determined according to the different aspects evaluated (author, venue, intentions, evidence and corroboration) and the depth of their evaluations. Students also filled in the Internet‐Specific Epistemic Justifications (ISEJ) inventory previously validated with pre‐service teachers. The results revealed considerable differences in students' abilities to evaluate online texts. Students' beliefs in justification by authority and justification by multiple sources positively predicted their evaluation performance similarly in both topics. The findings suggest that the ISEJ inventory is also valid for upper secondary school students. Students should be explicitly taught to evaluate different credibility aspects and scaffolded to deeply engage with online information. Lay Description: What is currently known about the subject matter: Evaluation of online texts is challenging for adolescents.Students' abilities to evaluate the credibility of online texts vary considerably.Beliefs in justifications for knowing may contribute to the evaluation of online information.Three‐dimensional knowing construct has been found in the Internet context. What the paper adds: Students' evaluations of online texts reflected different credibility aspects and depth in reasoning.Students used more frequently venue, evidence and author than intentions and corroboration as evaluation criteria.Students' beliefs in justification by authority and justification by multiple sources predicted their evaluation performance.Personal justification did not predict students' evaluation performance. The implications of study findings for practitioners: Students should be instructed to evaluate various aspects of credibility and engage in deep reasoning.Students would benefit from learning how to use corroboration with multiple texts as an evaluation strategy.Personal feedback may promote advanced justifications for knowing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]