Critical Thinking about Information Credibility in the Management Classroom

Abstract

The ability to evaluate the credibility of information is a fundamental part of critical thinking that students need to access knowledge and to learn using evidence. Yet, studies show that business students often fail to develop this capability and research highlights a need for new approaches to teach students how to evaluate the credibility of information sources. This paper builds on prior literature to propose a two-stage credibility evaluation model that utilizes a combination of screening factors (bias, appearance) and credence factors (reputation, assurances, verification, and endorsements) to assess the credibility of information sources. In contrast to existing approaches, which often rely on lists of questions to evaluate information credibility, this model aims to provide students with a greater conceptual understanding for how to assess the credibility of information. This study also proposes that implementing the two-stage model with an enhanced bibliography will improve students’ critical evaluation skills by allowing educators to provide more process-oriented feedback and by broadening the scope of feedback to consider both gullibility errors (including information that is not credible) and incredulity errors (excluding credible information).