Transcript The Fetal Stem Cell Debate: Separating Fact from Feelings

The Fetal Stem Cell Debate: How High School
Biology Students Separate Factual Information
from Agenda on the Internet
Brenda Steiger
CEP 806 Internet Inquiry Report
http://healthcare.zdnet.com/images/stem-cell-harvest.jpg
My purpose for this inquiry:
I wanted to know more about how my
students use the internet to form
opinions and obtain information about
science issues.
Internet Issues:
According to Bruce Bertram in his
article, Credibility of the Web: Why
we Need Dialectical Reading (2001),
users of the web hold different
perspectives on the reliability of its
text.
Where are my students at?
Internet Inquiry Project
Questions:
Through online discussions with other
teachers and my readings, I have
formed three questions that I think will
help me uncover what my students
think about the internet as a source of
information….
Question #1:
How do high school biology students
come to terms with conflicting
information regarding fetal stem cells
on the internet?
Question #2:
Are they able to separate information
that is more factual in nature from
information that has some underlying
agenda?
Question #3:
Which criteria do they use to evaluate
the credibility of different websites
relating to fetal stem cells?
Predictions:
How would my 21 biology students
respond to the three questions?
Here’s what I thought….
Prediction #1:
How do high school biology students come to terms with conflicting
information regarding fetal stem cells on the internet?
Their opinions will first be based on their
initial feelings about the issue, regardless of
the information the websites contain. Given
their reliance on particular search engines, I
then predict that a few students will want to
look to sites for information other than the
three that I provide.
Prediction #1: Background
Through my online discussions, I base my
prediction on a common theme among students:
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they prefer to rely on typical sites like
Wikipedia as a source of information
Websites with user-friendly formats
are preferred over those of less
familiar sites
Prediction #2:
How do they separate information that is factual from
information that has some other agenda?
Students will have difficulty in
determining the underlying purposes
behind any particular site’s content.
Prediction #2 Background:
My students may not yet have the skills to
differentiate between the treasures and the
junk of science information on the internet.
“The web today hides its precious treasures
behind a greater mass of semiprecious or
junk-grade texts.”
--Bertram, Bruce. Digital Content: The Babel
of Cyberspace. JAAL (1999)
Prediction #3
What criteria do they use to evaluate the credibility of different websites
relating to fetal stem cells?
Most will have a few ideas about how to identify
a legitimate site, but will not be able to name
more than one particular criteria to evaluate it.
Most will know what the domains .com, .org,
and .gov stand for, but will not have opinions
as to legitimacy for each.
Prediction #3: Background
Information
Like spoken language, technological literacy is
continually evolving, and students will need the
training and experience to cope with these
changes, according to the article, Twenty-First
Century Literacy (1998) J Flood, S.B. Heath, & D
Lapp (Eds,).
Are my students prepared to deal with these
changes?
My Inquiry Plan:
Project Steps
www.gothamgazette.com
Step 1:
I introduced basic information to the students
regarding the biology of the stem cell to get them
thinking.
http://www.stemcellnews.com/index/images/stemcellimage.jpg
Step 2:
I provided my students with the
addresses of three websites of
differing points of view….
Right to Life of Michigan (RTL)
http://www.rtl.org/html/stem_cell_resources/index.
html
National Institute of Health (NIH)
http://stemcells.nih.gov/
Medra, Inc.
http://www.medra.com/index.html
Step 3:
I allowed students time to browse
each of the three websites, and then
they filled out a questionnaire based
on the three inquiry questions.
Step 4:
I compiled questionnaire information
and conducted follow-up interviews
with a few representative students.
Student Task #1 Results:
Students compared and contrasted the positive and negative
aspects of fetal stem cell research presented on each of the
three websites.
How did the students handle conflicted or
perhaps de-emphasized information about
fetal stem cell research contained on each
site?
Task #1 Results:
Typical Student Responses
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“All of the sites had good information. Maybe
more science should be done to figure it out.”
“Medra says that it helped people. It (fetal
stem cell therapy) should be allowed.”
“I don’t think fetuses should be killed,
because there may be other ways to cure
diseases.”
Task #1 Results:
Five students indicated that they weren’t
sure what to do with the conflicted or deemphasized information on these three
sites. They spent some time looking up
information elsewhere.
Task #1 Analysis:
Some students expressed strong opinions
from either side of the debate based on
both what they saw on the sites and
through some preconceptions that they
held.
Unfortunately, they were more eager to
express an opinion about the issue than to
give an indication of how they arrived at it.
Task #1 Analysis:
The students responded as I
predicted, evaluating the positive and
negative sides of stem cell use from a
limited perspective.
This issue turned out to be new for
most of them, so many didn’t know
what to think when presented with
various sources of information.
Student Task #2:
Students matched the following
statements with what they thought
would characterize each of the three
sites…
Task #2
Students chose all that applied to each
of the 3 sites:
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to make money.
to persuade people into thinking a
certain way.
to simply inform people about this
topic.
Task #2 Results:
Categorizing sites by agenda
20
16
12
8
4
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PERSUADE
20
16
12
8
4
0
MONEY
20
16
12
8
4
0
INFORM
RTL
Medra
NIH
Task #2 Analysis:
All of the students indicated that the
NIH website intended to be
informative in nature. In my
prediction, I underestimated their
ability to notice this.
Task 2 Analysis:
Most students placed the Medra, Inc
website into all three categories. Some
indicated that the testimonials from patients
on this site made it particularly informative
in nature.
The site doesn’t explicitly state the costs of
their services, yet most students recognized
that Medra, Inc is a business. I did not
predict that they would see this.
Task #2 Analysis:
The Right to Life website elicited
various responses, but most agreed
that it was persuasive in nature.
Many students indicated that they
associated this organization with its
anti-abortion stance.
Student Task #3
Students were asked to make a list of the
items found on a website that would
indicate that it was a good source of
information.
Task #3:
Typical Student Responses
How do you know a website contains factual
information?
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“It explains things well.”
“If it’s like wikipedia.”
“It has lots of information.”
“It isn’t selling something.”
“If it was posted by a scientist.”
Task #3 Analysis:
My students already have some good ideas
as to what constitutes a reliable website.
When comparing the considerations listed
on the Johns Hopkins University website,
Evaluating Information Found on the
Internet, my students matched a few….
Task #3 Analysis:
Students already have some concept
of these criteria:
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Authorship
Publishing body
Point of view
Task #3 Analysis:
Students need reminders or instruction in
these evaluation criteria:
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Referral to other sources
Verifiability
Currency
Distinguishing propaganda, misinformation,
and disinformation
Emergent ideas:
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High school students have “grown up” with
the web; their experiences have provided
them already with some of the tools for
finding reliable information.
They still require instruction in evaluating
science information on the web. The more
they know about a topic, the better they get
at such evaluations.
Emergent Ideas:
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In such a survey, the way a question is
presented can determine the quality of
the data collected.
I would like to take more time in
comparing my results with those of my
online colleagues, to see if my results
are typical for other students.