As a high school science teacher, Dr Sarah Digan used to see her students get out their phones at the end of the day and she wondered what kinds of messages they were seeing.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
or signup to continue reading
On social media false and misleading claims can circulate in an instant but did the students have the skills to decipher fact from fiction?
Now a lecturer and researcher in STEM education at the Australian Catholic University, Dr Digan is conducting a study with year 9 students from Daramalan College to find out how they go about verifying claims using a data set.
"When I was in the classroom, I saw all the students using their phones and probably being influenced by data, but we wouldn't really teaching much about data use or actually using larger data sets in our teaching," Dr Digan said.
"That was one of the things I thought, 'Well, I would really like to research this and perhaps potentially change."
Daramalan College students get on board
Twenty students from Daramalan College were presented with two media stories about carbon dioxide levels and were given a data set to help verify those claims.
In small groups they worked in a laboratory at ACU's Canberra campus using computers that were recording their screens and their voices.
The same task was given to a group of year 9 students in Germany through the German Academic Research Exchange Service. The task will be repeated with the same students next year.
Professor Vince Geiger, a research program director at ACU's Institute of Learning Sciences and Teacher Education, is also involved in the research project.
He said it was vital for students to learn how to use data to enable them to work in many different fields and to be informed citizens.
How to scrutinise media
"Anyone, not just people interested in STEM, needs to be able to read a newspaper and say, 'is that really true?'" Professor Geiger said.
"We see in all sorts of media, both reliable and less reliable media, that people are using data and statistics more and more often and we need all citizens to be able to scrutinise those things to think about whether they come from reliable sources and if the claims are valid based on the evidence."
Professor Geiger said it was important for students to have early exposure to using large data sets.
Year 9 student Roy Halliday's curiosity was sparked when he heard the study was looking for student participants.
"I was like, 'Oh, what's this about? Lab rats and stuff? But I signed up. [I thought] it will be interesting, a day off school," he said.
"It's pretty cool to be able to be here and actually help with the study. Who knows? It might actually go pretty far."
READ MORE:
Making sense of data
When the students were initially presented with the Excel spreadsheet filled with numbers they were initially shocked, but they soon got down to work making sense of the data
Tristian Tierny said they had to use their Excel skills to search the data and find the average.
"You can apply this outside of STEM to any social media. It's everywhere these days. I think it's a very valuable tool to be able to use," he said.
Rachel Nicol said she tried to stay away from social media, but many of her peers were active on Snapchat and Instagram.
"There's a lot of fake news going around all the time," she said.
"There's a lot of articles that are just thrown out there and they have information but it doesn't always have a reliable source. So you don't really know if it's right or not."
Dr Digan said she hoped the exploratory study would reveal how the students went about validating the claims.
"We're having more and more data surrounding us everywhere. We really need to build those strengths in being able to identify misinformation."
We've made it a whole lot easier for you to have your say. Our new comment platform requires only one log-in to access articles and to join the discussion on The Canberra Times website. Find out how to register so you can enjoy civil, friendly and engaging discussions. See our moderation policy here.