Credibility Evaluation Research Articles

Students' abilities to evaluate the credibility of online texts: The role of internet‐specific epistemic justifications

AbstractPrevious evaluation studies have rarely used authentic online texts and investigated upper secondary school students' use of evaluation criteria and deep reasoning. The associations between internet‐specific epistemic justifications for knowing and credibility evaluation of online texts are not yet fully understood among adolescents. This study investigated upper secondary school students' (N = 372) abilities to evaluate self‐selected authentic online texts and the role of internet‐specific epistemic justifications in students' evaluation performance when solving a health‐related information problem. Students selected three texts with Google Custom Search Engine and evaluated their credibility. Students' evaluation performance across the three texts was determined according to the different aspects evaluated (author, venue, intentions, evidence and corroboration) and the depth of their evaluations. Students also filled in the Internet‐Specific Epistemic Justifications (ISEJ) inventory previously validated with pre‐service teachers. The results revealed considerable differences in students' abilities to evaluate online texts. Students' beliefs in justification by authority and justification by multiple sources positively predicted their evaluation performance similarly in both topics. The findings suggest that the ISEJ inventory is also valid for upper secondary school students. Students should be explicitly taught to evaluate different credibility aspects and scaffolded to deeply engage with online information.

Assessing the Effects of Myths about Sexual Aggression on the Verisimilitude of a Victim-Complainant of Sexual Assault

Sexual violence against women is one of the most underre­ported criminal offences, and has one of the lowest con­viction rates. The main standard of proof is the victim’s-complainant’s testimony and the evaluation of credibility. In order to assess the effects of myths about sexual aggres­sion on the credibility of women and their testimony, a field study was performed. The study consisted of 353 par­ticipants (235 women), aged 16 to 72 years, who evaluated the credibility of a testimony of a victim-complainant of sexual assault where the type of narrative was manipulated (neutral, provocative clothing, and alcohol consumption), and responded to a measure of the acceptance of myths about sexual aggression. The results revealed the type of narrative had no effect on the evaluation of testimonial credibility, but an effect was found in the factors gender, and myths about sexual aggression. Succinctly, men con­ferred less credibility to a victim’s-complainant’s testi­mony (i.e., less victim-complainant honesty, and testimo­nial credibility), whilst attributing less responsibility to the aggressor-defendant. However, both men and women equally attributed responsibility to the victim-complainant for the sexual assault. Moreover, individuals sanctioning myths about sexual aggression attributed less honesty and credibility to the victim-complainant, and their testimony, whilst attributing less responsibility to the aggressor-de­fendant, and more to the victim-complainant. The impli­cations of the results on judgement-making are discussed.

Information Credibility Evaluation in Presence of Users’ Safety in New Retailing

Understanding users’ safety perception of the credibility of web-based information has become increasingly important in the context of new retailing. This study extends the existing literature by exploring the factors influencing information credibility in the context of new retailing. Based on the technology acceptance model and the rational behavior theory, a theoretical model for the assessment of information credibility in new retailing was developed. We analyzed the factors influencing users’ safety preference toward information communication procedures and information credibility in new retailing based on two aspects: perceived information quality and user judgment motivation. The reliability and validity of the model measure were analyzed, and structural equation modeling was used to test the model hypotheses. The following results were obtained: (1) Authenticity, accuracy, and practicability positively affected the perceived information quality of new retailing information; (2) User judgment motivation had a positive impact on information users’ safety preference and information credibility; (3) Users’ safety preference positively affected information credibility; (4) Information acquisition, social interaction, and self-identity positively affected the perceived credibility of new retailing information.

Enhancing data quality to mine credible patterns

The importance of big data is widely accepted in various fields. Organisations spend a lot of money to collect, process and mine the data to identify patterns. These patterns facilitate their future decision-making process to improve the organisational performance and profitability. However, among discovered patterns, there are some meaningless and misleading patterns which restrict the effectiveness of decision-making process. The presence of data discrepancies, noise and outliers also impacts the quality of discovered patterns and leads towards missing strategic goals and objectives. Quality inception of these discovered patterns is vital before utilising them in making predictions, decision-making process or strategic planning. Mining useful and credible patterns over social media is a challenging task. Often, people spread targeted content for character assassination or defamation of brands. Recently, some studies have evaluated the credibility of information over social media based on users’ surveys, experts’ judgement and manually annotating Twitter tweets to predict credibility. Unfortunately, due to the large volume and exponential growth of data, these surveys and annotation-based information credibility techniques are not efficiently applicable. This article presents a data quality and credibility evaluation framework to determine the quality of individual data instances. This framework provides a way to discover useful and credible patterns using credibility indicators. Moreover, a new Twitter bot detection algorithm is proposed to classify tweets generated by Twitter bots and real users. The results of conducted experiments showed that the proposed model generates a positive impact on improving classification accuracy and quality of discovered patterns.

"Headache" Online Information: An Evaluation of Readability, Quality, Credibility, and Content.

Headache is experienced by more than half of the world population each year. In this study, we evaluate the content, quality, and health literacy required to understand online information for patients with headaches. We selected 4 commonly used search engines (Google, Yahoo, Bing, and Ask.com) and searched using the term "headache." The 30 top hits on each site were selected for review. After exclusions, we examined the websites for completeness of content, readability, credibility, and quality. A total of 28 websites were included. None of the websites met our criteria for completeness. Using 2 standard measures of readability, most websites required reading skills at the 10th-grade level or greater. Only 4 of the 28 websites were readable below the eighth-grade level. Only 3 websites fulfilled all 4 credibility criteria of authorship, currency, citations, and disclosure. Most websites did not list authorship, and only 17% reported disclosures of conflicts of interest. When assessing quality of treatment information using the DISCERN tool, scores ranged from 23 to 59, with a mean score of 41, which could be interpreted as "fair" quality. We found variable content and quality in online headache websites for patients. Many of these websites failed to disclose information about authorship, conflicts of interest, and details on the prognosis or prevention of headaches. Readability, credibility, completeness, and quality of information were lacking in most websites.

Children\u2019s ability to edit their memories when learning about the environment from credible and noncredible websites

One of the many sources of information easily available to children is the internet and the millions of websites providing accurate, and sometimes inaccurate, information. In the current investigation, we examined children’s ability to use credibility information about websites when learning about environmental sustainability. In two studies, children studied two different websites and were tested on what they had learned a week later using a multiple-choice test containing both website items and new distracters. Children were given either no information about the websites or were told that one of the websites (the noncredible website) contained errors and they should not use any information from that website to answer the test. In both studies, children aged 7- to 9-years reported information from the noncredible website even when instructed not to, whereas the 10- to 12-year-olds used the credibility warning to ‘edit out’ information that they had learned from the noncredible website. In Study 2, there was an indication that the older children spontaneously assessed the credibility of the website if credibility markers were made explicit. A plausible explanation is that, although children remembered information from the websites, they needed explicit instruction to bind the website content with the relevant source (the individual websites). The results have implications for children’s learning in an open-access, digital age where information comes from many sources, credible and noncredible. Education in credibility evaluation may enable children to be critical consumers of information thereby resisting misinformation provided through public sources.

Geographically and temporally weighted neural network for winter wheat yield prediction

Accurate prediction of crop yield is essential for agricultural trading, market risk management and food security. Although various statistical models and machine learning models have been developed to enhance prediction accuracy, spatial and temporal non-stationarity, an intrinsic attribute of many geographical processes, is still rarely considered in crop yield modeling. From a statistical point of view, this study respectively provided evidence for the existence of spatial non-stationarity and temporal non-stationarity in winter wheat yield prediction based on geographically weighted regression (GWR) and temporally weighted regression (TWR). Then, a geographically and temporally weighted neural network (GTWNN) model was proposed by integrating artificial neural network (ANN) into geographically and temporally weighted regression (GTWR) using publicly available data sources, including satellite imagery and climate data. For a more credible evaluation, the leave-one-year-out strategy was adopted to make out-of-sample prediction resulting in a total of 12 test years from 2008 to 2019. The experiment results showed that the proposed GTWNN outperformed ANN, GTWR and support vector regression (SVR) achieving the average coefficient of determination (R2) values of 0.766, 0.759 and 0.720 at the three prediction times of end of July, end of June and end of May. Moreover, an extended Moran's I was adopted to assess the degree of spatiotemporal autocorrelation of the prediction errors. The error aggregation of GTWNN was lower than other models, indicating that GTWNN is applicable to addressing spatial non-stationarity in modeling the relationship between predictors and yield response. The methodology proposed in this paper can be extended to handle spatiotemporal non-stationarity in other crop yield predictions and even other environmental phenomena.

Student evaluations of the credibility and argumentation of online sources

This study investigated upper secondary school students’ skills in evaluating the credibility and argumentative content of a blog text and a YouTube video. Both sources concerned child vaccination, the blog text opposing and the YouTube video supporting it. Students rated each source as credible, fairly credible or non-credible, justified their ratings, and analyzed the argumentation of both sources. Their justifications were analyzed for trustworthiness and expertise and their argument analyses for identification of the main position of the source and the reasons supporting it. Students’ justification skills proved fairly weak, and they also struggled with recognizing unbalanced argumentation. Students’ skill in analyzing the argumentation used in the sources also proved inadequate, especially in the blog text task. Overall academic achievement significantly predicted students’ credibility evaluation and argument analysis skills. The results suggest that greater emphasis should be placed on tasks involving the interpretation and analysis of online information.

Measuring a Model on Credibility Evaluation of Scientific Websites: Exploring Relationships and Priorities

Owing to the extreme importance of evaluating the credibility of existing scientific websites, the present study sets out to measure a proposed model concerning the views and preferences of university students in Iran, when evaluating information. Data were collected by administrating a highly validated questionnaire among 487 students in ten top universities in Iran. Structural Equating Modelling using software SmartPLS was conducted to analyse the data collected. To evaluate the measurement and structural models, a set of criteria including Cronbach's alpha, factor loadings, convergent and divergent validities, R2 , Q2 , redundancy, and GoF were considered to measure the power and validity of the model. Considering the path coefficients and the t-statistic for the dimensions and their components, path analysis showed that the t-statistic is greater than 2.57 indicating that all of the constructs contributed to the credibility of information on scientific websites at 99% confidence level. Coefficients of correlation concerning the overall information credibility were found to be 0.728 for trustworthiness and 0.718 for expertise. Expertise with a path coefficient of 0.968 and trustworthiness with 0.948 were the first and second priorities for the main variable. Moreover, ethics with a path coefficient of 0.787 and objectivity with 0.464 were the first and last priorities for trustworthiness respectively while accuracy with 0.874 and professional information with 0.674 were the first and last priorities for the dimension expertise respectively. The model could be used to evaluate the credibility of scientific websites’ information, which also provides a potential set for further research.

SIMULATION ANALYSIS AND CONSTRUCTION OF MAIZE SEEDER MODEL BASED ON EDEM (EM SOLUTIONS EDEM)

In order to improve the large-scale production efficiency of corn and realize the intellectualization and automation of corn seed metering technology, it is necessary to combine modern computer technology with intelligent algorithm to establish a feasible model suitable for corn seed metering device. In this paper, watershed algorithm and EDEM (EM Solutions EDEM) algorithm are used to establish an efficient corn particle recognition model. Watershed algorithm is used for image matching and recognition, EDEM algorithm is used for simulation and processing of corn particles. Twenty corn seeds were selected, and the proportion and volume fraction of seeds with different shapes were calculated by using the model. The parameters needed for simulation were calibrated to verify the reliability of corn sowing accuracy. Through the credibility evaluation of RTM (Resin Transfer Moulding) model in maize seed metering model, it can be seen that the model has credibility, and the variance test result P = 0.662 > 0.10 shows that the credibility of the model meets the requirements. The results show that the model can be applied to the large-scale production of corn seed metering device, greatly improve the production efficiency, has high reliability, and is worthy of practical application and promotion. In this paper, the model construction and Simulation of corn planter based on EDEM are deeply studied and analysed, and the related processes are improved, so as to comprehensively improve the work efficiency of corn planter and improve the quality of planter.

Soundtrack for reality? How to use music effectively in non-fictional media formats

Although it is frequently used and is highly valued in practice, background music in non-fictional media formats has shown a broad spectrum of ambiguous results in previous empirical research. Scholars have often even advised against the use of music in formats such as television news, news magazines, and documentaries. Discrepancies in the effectiveness of background music have also been found in film and advertising research. In these research areas, the congruence between music and medium has been shown to be especially relevant for predicting music’s effects. In this study, two experiments were conducted to investigate the influence of congruent and incongruent music in non-fictional media formats. The first experiment ( N = 92) focused on music’s expressed and induced emotions, recipients’ memory performance, and the perceived credibility and general evaluation of the media format. Experiment 2 ( N = 147) concentrated on attitude changes. As expected, carefully selected congruent background music (i.e., music expressing emotions and triggering associations fitting the media format’s topic) positively influenced recipients’ emotionalization, memory performance, and attitude change, as well as the perceived credibility and general evaluation of the media format. All of the measured effects can be considered medium or large ([Formula: see text]).

Acupuncture for the treatment of diarrheal-predominant irritable bowel syndrome: study protocol for a pilot randomized controlled trial

BackgroundIrritable bowel syndrome (IBS) is one of the most common functional gastrointestinal diseases. Although acupuncture has become a common alternative therapy for IBS, there is insufficient evidence for its effectiveness. This study was designed to assess the efficacy and feasibility of acupuncture in the treatment of IBS.Methods/designThis is a multicenter randomized controlled clinical trial. According to the ratio of 1:1:1, 90 patients with irritable bowel syndrome will be randomly divided into specific acupoints (SA) group, non-specific acupoints (NSA) group, and non-acupoints (NA) group. All patients will be treated with acupuncture 12 times within 4 weeks and followed up for 8 weeks. The primary outcome is the response rate, the percentage of patients whose average value of worst abdominal pain is 30% better and the days of loose stool is 50% less than the baseline, at week 4 after randomization. The secondary outcomes include the response rates at other time points, IBS Symptom Severity Scale (IBS-SSS), Patient Health Questionnaire-9 depression scale (PHQ-9), IBS-Quality of Life scale (IBS-QOL), IBS Adequate Relief (IBS-AR), Abdominal Pain Score, Abdominal Bloating Score, Bristol Stool Score (BBS), blinding assessment, and credibility evaluation. Adverse events will be monitored and recorded during the trial.Trial registrationChictr.org.cn ChiCTR2000030670. Registered on 9 March 2020.

Credibility Assessment Method of Sensor Data Based on Multi-Source Heterogeneous Information Fusion.

The credibility of sensor data is essential for security monitoring. High-credibility data are the precondition for utilizing data and data analysis, but the existing data credibility evaluation methods rarely consider the spatio-temporal relationship between data sources, which usually leads to low accuracy and low flexibility. In order to solve this problem, a new credibility evaluation method is proposed in this article, which includes two factors: the spatio-temporal relationship between data sources and the temporal correlation between time series data. First, the spatio-temporal relationship was used to obtain the credibility of data sources. Then, the combined credibility of data was calculated based on the autoregressive integrated moving average (ARIMA) model and back propagation (BP) neural network. Finally, the comprehensive data reliability for evaluating data quality can be acquired based on the credibility of data sources and combined data credibility. The experimental results show the effectiveness of the proposed method.

Regional Development of E-Commerce Based on Big Data Evaluation Model

In order to improve the authenticity and reliability of the evaluation data of regional e-commerce for reflecting the regional credit level in the business platform, this paper proposes a regional credibility evaluation model based on big data, which integrates the behavior characteristics of regional economic development and the judgment of the credibility of comments. Based on the analysis of regional economic behavior, the features include regional activity, regional reliability and regional contribution, while the credibility of comments is calculated based on the quality of regional text. The experimental results show that this method can quickly screen out the high reliability region, and can effectively alleviate the cold start problem. In the regional credibility evaluation model, two groups of features are proposed: regional behavior feature and regional text quality feature. The credibility of regional behavior, the credibility of regional social relations and the quality of regional comments are comprehensively evaluated. These two sets of features solve the problems of incomplete features and data cold start in the evaluation model of regional credibility.

Finnish adolescents’ selection and assessment of health information sources

Introduction. It is challenging for young people to determine who or what information sources they can trust in health issues. This study examines adolescents’ understanding of health, health information needs and credible health information sources and discusses the ways some information sources can be regarded as adolescents’ cognitive authorities in health matters. Methods. Thirty-seven Finnish secondary school students from fourteen to sixteen years were interviewed during a school health education project. Analysis. The data were transcribed verbatim and analysed qualitatively through open, axial and selective coding. Findings. Two broad categories of young people’s understanding of health and well-being were identified: a narrow disease-oriented view and a wider view including aspects of mental and social well-being. These views were connected with recognised health information needs, preferred health information sources and credibility evaluation. Conclusions. The interviewed young people found family members and health professionals to be the most credible information sources in health problems. Thus, they can be regarded as adolescents’ cognitive authorities who are likely to influence their opinions. In more general health information needs and in lifestyle issues, the range of the information sources was wider and credibility assessments were dependent on the subject.

Culture and perceptions on cancer risk and prevention, information access, and source credibility: a qualitative interview study in Chinese adults

We aimed to explore cancer risk and prevention perceptions, information access, and source credibility evaluation about cancer risk and prevention in adults in an Eastern cultural context (China). We conducted 32 in-depth interviews in two Chinese cities: Shanghai and Wuhan, from September 2016 to January 2017. Though not fully supported by scientific evidence, our findings showed that stress was among the top five concerns in the participants’ perceptions of cancer risk and prevention. Obesity and infectious agents, significant cancer risks for Chinese populations, did not receive so much attention among the participants. Principles of Eastern culture, such as change, contradiction, and holism, were reflected in the participants’ interpretations and understandings of cancer risk and prevention. Beliefs in fate or destiny, as associated with Eastern culture, were also apparent in the strongly fatalistic views towards cancer prevention of some participants. Individual responsibility for cancer risk, rather than collective responsibility (such as government or society), was emphasised by participants. Except for personal social networks, the information channels where the participants frequently accessed cancer risk and prevention information (the media) were completely different from the information channels they trusted (healthcare system). Our findings provide useful references for cancer risk and prevention communication and education in China.

A credibility evaluation method for complex simulation systems based on interactive network analysis

The credibility evaluation method for a single simulation model is relatively mature at present. While there is still a great need to provide an effective credibility evaluation method for complex simulation systems, which is the basic premise to assist the design, test, evaluation and optimization of a complex research object based on constructing its simulation system. In this paper a credibility evaluation method for complex simulation systems based on the interaction analysis of their internal data is proposed. A directed weighted interaction network describing the interaction among models in a complex simulation system can be constructed. Further, based on the credibility of each simulation model and the network structure, we can quantitatively analyze their impacts on the overall credibility of the system. In order to verify the effectiveness of the method, we constructed a validation system based on the network structure of a multi-agent cooperative simulation system with known credibility. The evaluation result comparison showed that our method can provide a feasible way for the relatively accurate credibility analysis of complex simulation systems. Finally, our verified method was applied to evaluate the credibility of the complex hardware-in-the-loop simulation system composed with over 100 components, which provided a quantitative way instead of traditional qualitative evaluation by experts.

Validity of Psychiatric Evaluation of Asylum Seekers through Telephone

The goal of the psychiatric assessment of asylum seekers is to evaluate the asylum seeker's mental health and credibility. The shortage of mental health providers trained in this particular type of evaluation makes in-person evaluation not always feasible. Telephonic interview has been occasionally utilized to fill this void. The validity of such evaluations in assessing credibility has yet to be fully established. In the case of telephonic interviews, evaluators are limited with no access to facial or body language cues that can indicate deception or honesty. We will present a case of a client evaluated via telephone that was deemed credible and eventually released to pursue asylum in the US. Assessment of credibility relied solely on cues obtained from the client's narrative, reported symptoms, and their style of interaction with the evaluator. We will highlight the findings from the client's interview that supported credibility in the case and discuss the challenges of assessing asylum seeker's credibility via telephonic interview. Telephonic evaluation of credibility can be considered a valid method despite major challenges, but psychiatric evaluators should be aware of the limitations of telephonic evaluations given the high possibility of secondary gains and deception.

Traditional and Online Media: Relationship between Media Preference, Credibility Perceptions , Predispositions, and European Identity

The present study investigates the relationship between people’s preference of either traditional or online media for news consumption, credibility evaluation of media and their sense of European identity. In order to do so, the study draws on the Social Identity Theory and the findings of social psychologists which situate European identity a concept that corresponds to an individuals’ subjective assignment to a collective and their affective and evaluative attachment to it. The analysis based on Eurobarometer survey data reveals that preferences of both online and traditional media for political news positively affects European identity. However, such an effect is dependent on people’s pre-existing attitudes towards the EU and if they perceive the media to be neutral and credible.

Capricious credibility – legal assessments of voluntariness in Swedish negligent rape judgements

ABSTRACT A new rape legislation, premised on the requirement of voluntariness, entered into force in Sweden during 2018. This article examines the application and interpretation of voluntariness in Swedish negligent rape judgements with a unique combination of the theoretical perspectives’ sociology of emotion and feminist-legal studies. The material consists of 12 court judgements, from the period 2018–2020, analysed by means of thematic content analysis. The findings show that the judgements in negligent rape cases are based on an evaluation of credibility, supported by evidence that consists of witness statements. These evaluations entail emotions and stereotypes about gender and sexuality, pertaining to rape myths – leading to inconsistent outcomes. Yet, some fundamental assumptions about gender and sexuality are challenged, indicating that the new law may invite discursive shifts and enhanced reflexivity in legal reasoning. The findings are valuable in the work to minimize legal discrimination and secure equality before the law.