Best Practice

Rethinking how students evaluate information

How can we help students to choose good sources of information for their academic assignments? Andrew K Shenton looks at one possibility
Image: Adobe Stock

It is an eternal problem. There has long been concern that young people involved in independent learning will use poor-quality information when writing their school assignments.

One of the first to formulate a significant published solution to the problem was Michael Marland, the distinguished headteacher and educationalist, who – more than 40 years ago – led a major working party charged with devising guidance for teachers on how they should train their students in information skills (see Marland, 1981).

Within a wider model, Marland and his team isolated various factors that might be considered by young people when deciding which sources to select for use and which to reject.

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