Training school students in information evaluation

Reviewing the past, establishing the present and considering the future

Abstract

The importance of the skill of source evaluation within information literacy (IL) has grown hugely in the last fifty years and now few aspects of IL receive greater attention. It was subject to little coverage in the early days but today a multitude of specialist appraisal tools have been devised to help users make assessments of the material they encounter, at a time when the information to which people are exposed differs more than ever in terms of its types, originators and calibre. Many of the evaluation frameworks, though, are variations on a theme. In the future, we may make progress by encouraging young people to develop their own mental models for appraising information, after they have explored disparate frameworks that have emerged from the ideas of writers who have taken particular interest in contrasting types of material.