Adolescents’ reasoning to manage fake news

Abstract

This study draws on literature on argumentation and critical thinking. Its main goal is to analyse teenagers’ critical thinking to manage scientific information in social networks. We analysed 95 ninth graders’ quality of argumentation on their degree of agreement and their degree of credibility of a fake news item. The design included a dependent variable (argumentative competence), two independent variables (degree of agreement, degree of credibility) and a covariate (reading comprehension). A significant correlation was found between the degree of agreement and the degree of credibility. In addition, the degree of credibility decreases significantly as reading comprehension increases. Students who positioned themselves against the claim of the fake news and those who did not believe it showed higher argumentative quality in their texts than those who both agreed with and believed it. These results bring evidence of the confirmation bias claim when we apply it to fake news. We tend to accept information that confirms our prior beliefs uncritically. Similarly, 83% of those who did not believe the content of the news would consult an additional text, compared to 62.5% of those who agreed with it. This is a result that highlights the urgency of implementing educational guidelines to help students develop critical skills to manage fake news.