How Good Is This Page? Benefits and Limits of Prompting on Adolescents’ Evaluation of Web Information Quality

The present study examined adolescents' detection of features that affect the quality of Web information. In Experiment 1, participants (12-16 years old) rated the goodness/usefulness of four Web-like documents for a simulated study assignment. Each document came with an issue that potentially undermined its quality. Two documents had source-related issues (i.e., non-competent author, outdated) and two had content-related issues (i.e., topic mismatch, poor readability). Most students failed to notice the issues, including topic mismatch. The participants also produced inconsistent evaluations of topic-match, readability, author competence and currency. In Experiment 2, students were prompted to assess each criterion separately. The participants distinguished poorer from better documents in relation to each criterion, except for author competence. We discuss these results in light of previous research on adolescents’ evaluation behavior. We propose further avenues for reading research, and we articulate a few recommendations for educational practice.