Fact-Checking Skills And Project-Based Learning About Infodemic And Disinformation

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Highlights

  • University students are increasingly involved in autonomous and collaborative learning processes.

  • Based on thematic-experiential classes and through the project-based learning methodology, this teaching experience consisted of lecturing a fake class.

  • The objective of this study was to raise awareness of the risks of disinformation and infodemics and to identify the main social competencies and skills related to fact-checking.

  • Training in fact-checking skills appeared to improve job performance and undoubtedly contributed to the personal development of future graduates.

ABSTRACT

In today's high-information and high-communication society, university students are increasingly involved in autonomous and collaborative learning processes, which require active methodologies to facilitate the integration of social competencies. The objective of this study was to raise awareness of the risks of disinformation and infodemics and to identify the main social competencies and skills related to fact-checking that students should acquire. Based on thematic-experiential classes and through the project-based learning methodology, this teaching experience consisted of lecturing a fake class in the communication degree programme, in which the professor gave a speech to 150 students about coronavirus that contained both hoaxes and true information, thus challenging students to identify false information. The results obtained in this qualitative study are divided into three parts to answer each research question. The first part is focused on identifying the most influential hoaxes about the coronavirus that young people have embraced as reliable information during the 2020 pandemic (RQ1). The second part is dedicated to explaining students’ reactions when they are involved in infodemic contexts. We also point out the main challenge that arose in a period of infodemics (RQ2). In the third part, we propose the main fact-checking skills that students should acquire to tackle disinformation in a period of infodemics (RQ3). Training in these skills appeared to improve job performance and undoubtedly contributed to the personal development of our future graduates.

Section snippets

INTRODUCTION

In chaotic and confusing times such as the present period, which is filled with political, cultural economic, technological and social transformations, education represents an essential foundation that provides a better understanding of the current challenges and offers solutions to embrace the changes we are already experiencing. For that reason, education is a valuable asset that favours the development of innovation processes.

In doing so, Zamora-Polo et al. (2019) argue that comprehensive

DISINFORMATION AND INFODEMIC: THE NEW PANDEMICS

Online falsehoods have a substantial impact on public opinion and behaviours (Parkinson, 2016; Read, 2016; Dewey 2016; Allcott & Gentzkow, 2017). For that reason, fabricated stories truly represent a global problem, which needs to be urgently addressed (Pal & Banerjee, 2019). Fabricated stories have always existed throughout history (Moore, 2017; Edson et al., 2018); however, in recent years, they have grown as a consequence of the new era of Internet hoaxes (LaGarde & Hudgins, 2018).

Wardle &

THE DEVELOPMENT OF FACT-CHECKING SKILLS

After clarifying the disadvantages and risks of disinformation and infodemics for young people, it is important to propose solutions that address the vulnerabilities of students. In doing so, education should be conceived as the cornerstone of this process, since young people need to be trained in identifying disinformation and discerning falsehood from truth, regardless of whether the information coincides with their ideology or prejudices (Van der Linden et al., 2020). Ideological

Design of the teaching experience: the procedure

The present study describes an innovative teaching experience that has been conducted in the communication degree programme during the academic year 2020/2021 in two universities located in Sevilla and Córdoba (Spain). Participants were first-year high school students enrolled in the Theory of Communication course. This innovative teaching experience is the first phase of an innovative teaching project entitled Dystopian Society: a teaching innovation project in Theory of Communication, which

RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

The results obtained in this study are divided into three parts, each of which is oriented to answer a research question. The first part is focused on identifying the most influential hoaxes about the coronavirus that young people have embraced as reliable information during the 2020 pandemic (RQ1). The second part is dedicated to explaining students’ responses when they are involved in infodemic contexts. At the same time, we also point out the main challenge that arose in a period of

LIMITATIONS AND FUTURE RESEARCH

The current study has a number of limitations. First, there were no comparisons to a control group, so it was difficult to draw informative conclusions. Second, in relation to the obtained findings, it should be noted that this research provides the foundation for further studies that aim to examine the relationships between social competencies and fact-checking skills. Clearly, further studies are required to test all these proposals.

Third, the current sample was drawn from university

CONCLUSIONS

The present study provides a first in-depth analysis of fact-checking skills within the framework of social competencies. The teaching experience described in this research sheds light on the need to adapt the existing pedagogy methods to the 4.0 environment, to implement a more active teaching process in university classrooms and to popularize the use of more functional, helpful and motivating means, such as digital resources. Although the global health crisis caused by the coronavirus has

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