In Pictures We Trust: Evaluating Digital Information and Disinformation with Phenomenon-based Learning in Secondary Schools

Abstract The existence of disinformation in online environments increases the risk that young people will be exposed to manipulated content. It is not surprising, then, researchers and educators are focusing on ways to build pupils’ multiliteracy competencies. In this article, we look at the role visual information plays when students assess the trustworthiness of online information and disinformation. The authors present data from Austrian classroom interventions, where eight teachers used a phenomenon-based learning (PhBL) approach to build their 107 pupils’ multiliteracy competencies. The authors undertook video-based and written classroom observations and conducted interviews (n = 44). They found that visual information plays a significant role in pupils’ decisions on whether to trust online information or not. Other factors that increase trust include human actors (e.g. teachers or other pupils) and easily accessible digital information (e.g. visuals or information provided by algorithms or ai ). The phenomenon-based pedagogy approach meant that pupils were working in groups, giving a greater opportunity to engage in reflective dialogue, and being more critical about online information.