Pre-service teachers’ position taking in socio-scientific issues: authoritative information and skepticism in a post-truth world

In a post-truth world where information is so widely accessed online, critical engagement with sources of truth is essential, especially for teachers, who are charged with teaching information literacy and critical thinking in schools. This article is drawn from a cross-curricular initiative integrating information literacy into an assessment task requiring pre-service teachers to respond to a socio-scientific issue. The study was conducted in Australia with 11 undergraduate pre-service teachers (primary and secondary) enrolled in a compulsory ICT unit within an initial teacher education programme at a regional university. We explore how pre-service teachers engage with sources of information, authority, and display a sceptical stance in this task. Findings highlight that the participants frequently used non-authoritative sources and displayed limited scepticism in invoking claims made by authorities to justify their position. An argument is lodged for pre-service teacher education addressing information literacy, critical thinking and scepticism that transcends a focus on specific tasks or the cognitive domain.