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Race-Reimaging Epistemic Cognition: Centering Marginalized Voices during Online Learning

Thu, April 9, 7:45 to 9:15am PDT (7:45 to 9:15am PDT), Westin Bonaventure, Floor: Level 3, Avalon

Abstract

Purpose
We aim to understand how marginalized students evaluate information on the Internet and what web-design and social features affect their perceptions of truthfulness and trustworthiness of online content.
Theoretical Frameworks
Digital literacy—using information and communication technologies to find, evaluate, create, and communicate information—is a globally recognized educational goal (UNESCO, 2018; Sheldon & Castek, 2024). In an age of abundant information, digital literacy is more critical than ever (Central Statistics Office, 2023). Yet many students lack these skills (Statistics Canada, 2020), which contributes to the spread of misinformation (Scheufele & Krausse, 2019).
To build digital literacy, scholars advocate for developing students’ epistemic cognition—the thinking involved in acquiring, understanding, justifying, and using knowledge (Greene et al., 2016). Research on digital literacy interventions has explored how web-design affects perceptions of information credibility (Gutiérrez-Ángel et al., 2022). However, these studies rarely consider how perceptions of truth and trust may be racialized (DeCuir-Gunby, 2024). Educational psychology has often ignored marginalized perspectives (APA, 2022), prompting calls to re-center race in the field (Muis & Schutz, 2024). Missing from digital literacy and epistemic cognition literature is recognition of multiple ways of knowing, such as Black epistemologies (Muhammad & Haddix, 2016), Indigenous knowledge systems (Tanaka, 2016), and Asian worldviews (Raud, 2021), which challenge dominant models of epistemic cognition. Centering marginalized students’ voices is essential for more inclusive and effective digital literacy interventions.
We examined what online features marginalized students identify as enhancing or diminishing the perceived truthfulness and trustworthiness of content. Our research question: How do marginalized students evaluate online information as true and trustworthy, and what features enhance these perceptions?
Methods and Data Sources
Twenty-eight marginalized university students participated in focus-group interviews (2–5 participants), conducted by research assistants who identified as marginalized. Interviews were coded using MAXQDA based on nine inductively developed superordinate codes (Braun & Clarke, 2006; see Table 1). Due to space limits, methodological details are summarized in Figure 1; the full paper will provide complete methods.

Results
As elaborated in Table 2, four preliminary themes emerged regarding evaluating truth and trustworthiness of information online: (1) Characteristics of information, (2) Delivery style/Web features, (3) Coordinating/weighing of information, and (4) Situated expertise. Due to space constraints, we describe two here: coordinating and weighing of information, wherein students considered multiple sources of information and chose which sources are truthful and trustworthy; and situated expertise, where the sources of knowledge are more or less trustworthy depending on the context. When evaluating information online, marginalized students compared information from multiple sources and considered the context in which the source produced or shared the information. For trust and truth, they turned to the oppressed, not the oppressor. They also described that, for some domains, individuals’ socio-historical experiences were more believable than experts’ positions: “My source is my people, my grandparents, they witnessed this.”
Significance
This study is the first to examine marginalized students’ views on truth and trust in digital spaces. Before designing digital literacy interventions, it is vital to center these historically excluded voices.

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