Evaluating the New York Times: Content Analysis of Student Responses to Open-Ended Tutorial Questions

Abstract

This study involves student responses to open-ended questions regarding the credibility of a New York Times news article after viewing library instructional materials. The authors present the use of content analysis as a means of assessing students’ source evaluations. The analysis revealed that all students were able to correctly list three factors that contribute to a source’s credibility, and nearly all students (96.5%) were able to define bias. Interestingly, 42.6% of students evaluated the New York Times article as not credible, for a variety of categorical reasons. These findings led to actionable changes to library instruction content.