A new Pew Internet and American Life Project report (The Internet as a Resource for News and Information about Science)indicates that increasingly, Americans learn about science on the Internet. According to the report, 40 million citizens “..rely on the Internet as their primary source for news and information about science.” Among broadband users, 34% said that they get most of their science news and information from the Internet. Slightly fewer get it from TV.
Far more U.S. online users research about science on the Internet:
- 70% have used the Internet to look up the meaning of scientific terms.
- 68% have gone online to look up an answer to a question.
- 65% have used the Internet to learn more about a science story
- 55% have used the Internet to complete a science assignment.
- 52% have used the Internet to check the accuracy of a scientific fact
- 43% have downloaded scientific data
- 37% have used the Internet to compare different or opposing scientific theories.
This added up to 87% (128 million adults) of online users who have accessed scientific information from the Internet.
These results provoke several questions to me, as an educator:
- If adult society is relying increasingly on the Internet for information about science, to what degree should science students be relying on (learning to use) the Internet?
- Are Internet researchers engaging in practices that help to assure the accuracy, reliability, and validity of the information that they find? Where should they be learning these basic literacy skills?
- Is there a fundamental difference between accessing the Internet for scientific information and reading it in a newspaper or watching a science program on TV.
Another interesting conclusion from the report was that:
Those who seek out science news or information on the Internet are more likely than others to believe that scientific pursuits have a positive impact on society.
I wonder why this is. Perhaps it goes back to question three above. I wonder if people see Net-based information as coming more from the conversation of that society, whereas newspapers, science news programming, and textbooks are more packaged — and sanitized?
What do you think?
technorati tags:warlick, education, Internet, technology, science
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This reinforces the mistaken notion that science is learned from reading or watching a screen. This thinking error is demontrated when school boards cut science specialists in order to buy new science books.
Scientific knowledge is a consequence of experience – of doingscience, not merely reading about it.
1. If adult society is relying increasingly on the Internet for information about science, to what degree should science students be relying on (learning to use) the Internet?
2. Are Internet researchers engaging in practices that help to assure the accuracy, reliability, and validity of the information that they find? Where should they be learning these basic literacy skills?
3. Is there a fundamental difference between accessing the Internet for scientific information and reading it in a newspaper or watching a science program on TV.
The internet itself isn’t the issue is it? It’s where you get the information and what skills you have to interpret it. So you know, it’s better to grab it from multiple sources and the more skeptical a piece of information is, the more sources you probably should go to for confirmation of “fact”.
I mean, this is being a bit general, but for basic concepts I may go to Wikipedia or try and find university powerpoints (or perhaps biotech company websites or even professor/lecturer websites or student websites or enthusiast websites)…. textbooks also fall in this category.
But after that, to get the latest information, you must must must go to the source – the original papers, the new papers, etc… and I get that online because my university has paid certain subscriptions… the best is of course to talk to the professor or lecturer who WROTE the blimmin’ thing, so they can actually tell you exactly what they did and the limitations of their conclusions and what they think is the best interpretation of the data. Also, you can read responses or click papers that have cited that paper to see if that information has been refuted or modified (etc) at some later point.
I sometimes read the Scientific American or New Scientist (I think they’ve gotten worse over the years) and always check the local and global newspapers for ‘scientific’ articles – they’re a good source of information for knowing what the public may be interested in , where funding may be possible (because people are interested) and just generally a good way to keep up on “science” they may not necessarily be in your field. But if they grab my attention, I’ll go try and find the paper (e.g. the Stern report). It also helps to read several articles from different sources (about perhaps the same issue or article) and get the different viewpoints, as newspapers are notorious for the their slanting of information.
wrt to DOING science… i mean, it’s sort of true… once you experience doing it, you realise all this stuff about how “facts” are always changing, either being validated or modified in the best way known to mankind…. like as if science and knowledge are more verbs than nouns. lol, wouldn’t my english teacher just stab me several times for that
I don’t know… I just started a summer studentship and I went through the above process…. getting the basic concepts from textbooks and internet “general”, asking questions of other lab members…while playing around with the equipment and reading the manual/tutorial… yesterday I just downloaded about 20 papers from Medline/Google Scholar and various journals high on the citation index. When I couldn’t access some that I wanted (access, subscription probs), I just asked my professor who happened to have written them and he had hardcopies. Throughout this whole thing you constantly use “define” or just normal Google and Wikipedia to search basic concepts and sort of intergrate/reinforce everything from basic concepts to new ideas to controversial theories to practical applications, laboratory practise… blah blah blah…
Hmmm… I don’t know!
What do you think?
Cherrie, I agree with you 100%. Statistics can be used to skew the truth about learning – and that’s what the PEW report does. The stats tell and important story – about the pervasiveness of the internet. Not surprising really. I use the internet tons too. But like you, I know that real, indepth knowledge is not acquired, understood, debated, extended, extrapolated, and used to advance the capacity of humanity to achieve things by surfing for information on the net. Maybe one day, when everything is digital and indexed by Google, but not now! So to answer David’s question.
Yes science (or any) students need to not only learn how to use the internet effectively, but how to go beyond that in their quest for knowledge and deep learning. What the PEW report presents is superficial, obvious confirmation of what we already know about kids use of the internet. Our responsibility as educators is to show them how to be effective searchers for information, analysts of idea, and where to ‘keep digging’ effectively to help them in their formulations..
I am struck with the kinds of sources they use online – the “official sources” like the Academy, science magazines and journals, etc., not CNN.com.
Is it because journalists are distrusted, so people go to check out what actual scientists say?
Or is it because not enough information is given in a 30-second TV-news clip (and it is watered-down), so people go online to find more details?
Is the he-said-she-said journalism to blame, always giving equal time to two sides, so people go online to find what real experts say?
And what is the role of science blogs in all this? After all, if the latest science news has something to do with circadian clocks or sleep, people expect me to explain the new study and feel free to ask further questions in the comments on my blog, so it is a conversation. While it is a dialogue between an expert and a lay-person, it is also a friendly dialogue with mutual respect, not a top-down lecture.
I am really enjoying this conversation. It is about so much more than science, the Internet, CNN, and even the basic skills. After reading these comments, my thoughts go more to how the nature of science changes, as a body of study and as an ongoing issue of interest for adults, as our information environment becomes far more participatory. What we are learning is that science, and the social studies, and mathematics, and even what we know about health — is also participatory.
Scientists, historians, health professionals, and virtually all disciplines practice their crafts in conversation, constantly expressing, challenging, and changing what they believe and know about their world. It is teachers and students who act as if science is hard facts. It’s what is so terribly wrong with much of the “testing” that happens today. It has so much faith in the value of facts, while there is so little that is certain. It’s part of living in such an information driven, technology-rich world. We are learning so much, and that constant learning forces us to constantly question what we already knew.
So, what are we talking about here, with regard to science, the Internet, and basic literacy skills? What is the question we should be asking ourselves? I think it is:
Should we be teaching what scientists know (or believe)?
or
Should we be teaching what scientists do?
And if we are to teach students to be scientists (observers, researchers, experimenters), then can we test it? Well, certainly not in a way that can show up in a table in the state newspapers. But, if we are coming to rely on the Internet more for our information and multimedia for expression, then might it become more possible for us to demonstrate practice, rather than just demonstrate our mastery of facts?
What do you think?
Your questions David, take us wandering into the whole constructivism debate – social construcivisim and the scinece/maths wars, or radical constructivism of Ernst Von Glasersfeld etc.
I don’t think we need to go there, but suggest that we should be teaching ‘know’ ‘believe’ ‘can do’ ‘question’ ‘research’ and make sure that we don’t rely on enculturation to develop our new scientists. Mastery of facts has it’s place only when it is in the context of using that mastery to question and develop further knowledge. YOu’ve got to know stuff to develop stuff!
IN other words – testing has no value when all it does is test fact. Summative assessment never had much value. Normative assessement can be a whole new ballgame if we want to make it so. Thread it through with new Web 2.0 opportunities, and see what happens.
Knowing how to do, because you understand (rather than recite content), and can challenge is critical. Humanity moves forward only on creativity and flexibility of thought.
Our newly emerging participatory environments should see great leaps forward if we also ensure good access to knowledge and information. Let’s not test the kids to death – but lets monitor their learning so that we can support them to reach their full potential.
As for science? or any discipline – needs depth and breadth of understanding alongside collaboration and participation.
You ask:
Well, I just did a few Google searches on basic scientific questions, and it seemed like the answers I got were pretty much from newspapers and popular science magazines, science journals, science news program websites, textbooks (written by college professors or grad students if not actually published). Basically the same sources anyone would use offline, in a more convenient form.
Fair point, Tom! But would people have all of those sources at their finger tips without the web — and if people are looking at news, journals, papers, etc., when they use the Internet, could it be said that they are after a variety of viewpoints? Might that be called a conversation? Perhaps its not a conversation that they are contributing to, but its a realization that answers come from different representations of the science community.
Granted, that most people are probably not going to Technorati yet, but once you factor in science bloggers, the landscape shifts a little more obviously.