Improving college students’ fact-checking strategies through lateral reading instruction in a general education civics course

Cognitive Research: Principles and Implications

Table 4 Mean score for students in each condition for each problem at pretest and posttest (N = 230; N_DPI = 136, N_Control = 94)

Problem type	Pretest		Posttest
Problem type	DPI	Control	DPI	Control
Photographic evidence	1.21 (0.52) (N = 135)	1.41 (0.73) (N = 93)	2.13 (1.34) (N = 136)	1.09 (0.46) (N = 94)
Sourcing evidence	1.27 (0.60) (N = 135)	1.18 (0.51) (N = 92)	1.83 (1.08) (N = 106^a)	1.27 (0.52) (N = 84^a)
Clickbait science and medical disinformation	1.18 (0.53) (N = 136)	1.19 (0.65) (N = 93)	2.15 (1.28) (N = 136)	1.11 (0.35) (N = 92)
Fake news	1.19 (0.54) (N = 135)	1.12 (0.59) (N = 93)	2.67 (1.34) (N = 135)	1.13 (0.52) (N = 92)

Scores should be interpreted on a scale of 0 = made no effort, 1 = reacted to or described original content, 2 = indicated investigative intent, but did not search laterally, 3 = conducted a lateral search using online resources but failed to correctly evaluate trustworthiness, and 4 = conducted a lateral search and correctly evaluated trustworthiness
^aSmaller Ns for posttest Sourcing Evidence problem in problem set B at posttest are due to missing data or students’ responses stating that the YouTube video was unavailable