Discussing Beliefs and Emotions as Students Evaluate Social Media Posts

• In Event: Teaching and Engaging With Students' Emotions as They Navigate Social Media

Abstract

Objectives
Students need more support learning to evaluate digital content (Breakstone et al., 2021), and teachers can help students learn effective evaluative approaches (e.g., Author, 2022). However, students do not evaluate digital information in a vacuum; their beliefs and emotions affect their reasoning. Thus, knowing effective strategies does not necessarily mean students will use them. To better approximate the full reality of the online world, lessons might help students to consider their beliefs and emotions as they learn to evaluate online content. In this study, we investigated class discussions as students learned evaluative approaches. We analyzed how students’ beliefs and emotions surfaced and how teachers and students navigated these factors.

Theoretical Framework
Lessons analyzed in this study situated online evaluations in authentic contexts and helped students consider individual and structural factors that affect their online experiences. Students practiced evaluation strategies like lateral reading (leaving a website or post to investigate the source via other online sources; Author, 2019) with social media posts on topics they cared about and reflected on how their emotions and beliefs mediated evaluations (Author, 2021; Kahne & Bowyer, 2017). Further, students learned how online architectures influence the information students see and incentivize the production and spread of emotional, divisive content (Kuo & Marwick, 2021).

Methods & Data Sources
Six high school social studies teachers taught six, 45-minute lessons and two, 15-minute mini lessons. Three lessons were adapted from the Civic Online Reasoning curriculum (cor.stanford.edu); three lessons and the mini lessons were developed for this study. Teachers received initial training, detailed lesson plans, and discussed each lesson with the research team before and after teaching it. Teachers recorded each lesson in one class period. We transcribed full class and small group discussions to analyze students’ and teachers’ reasoning about individual and structural factors that affected evaluations and partial or missed opportunities for such reasoning.

Results
Analyses are ongoing, but initial results suggest that lessons facilitated student reflection on individual and structural factors as they evaluated social media posts. Specific lesson components may have encouraged this. First, teachers modeled reflecting on their own feelings about online content for students. Second, teachers varied how they asked students to reflect on their reactions when they encountered online content; for example, some students shared initial reactions using Google Jamboard and then returned to the Jamboard to reflect on their evaluations. Finally, students frequently evaluated online content in small groups, often sharing more than they did as a full class. Despite these findings, opportunities for further development remain as full-class discussions sometimes remained quite focused on the evaluation strategies that students practiced.

Significance
Lessons that support students to reflect on how their emotions and beliefs influence what information reaches them and how they evaluate it may support students to better understand and navigate social media. By exploring possibilities and limitations of such lessons, this study lays the foundation for continued research in this area.

Authors

• Sarah McGrew, University of Maryland
  Presenting Author

• Elizabeth Reynolds, University of Maryland
  Presenting Author