Ideas

IDEA #11: Alternative Facts: Questioning Evidence

“Seek to instill in [students] the confidence to display a healthy skepticism of the information handed to them.”¹

Learning Intention

“Because it is extremely difficult, if not impossible, to establish the absolute truth or falsity of most claims, rather than asking whether they are true, we prefer to ask whether they are dependable. In essence, we want to ask, “Can we count on such beliefs?” The greater the quality and quantity of evidence supporting a claim, the more we can depend on it, and the more we can call the claim a “fact.”³

Overview

Engaging students routinely in providing and evaluating evidence for claims, both their own and those of others, can get them in the habit of thinking critically by questioning evidence. This exercise highlights the need to look at diverse sources of information before accepting something as fact, as well as recognizing the limitations that even “good” sources of data hold.³

Instructions

• Collect articles: Find 5-6 articles from a variety of news sources that cover a specific issue, news item, or current event (e.g. Hurricane Katrina, the immigration ban, the Pepsi advertisement, etc.).
• Develop questions: Create a list of 10 questions based on the articles' content so that no single article can answer all 10 questions and that some of the questions will have different answers based on the different "facts" presented in the articles.
• Put students to work in groups: Give each group one of the articles and the list of questions. Using only the article provided (no extra Googling or personal knowledge), have them look for answers to as many of the questions as they can.
• Share answers: Have each group submit the answers they found, either by writing them on a grid on the whiteboard, typing them into a Google document or spreadsheet to display, or presenting their findings orally. If the numbers work out, you could form new groups with one member from each original group to compare answers and discuss their findings.
• Debrief: As a class or in groups, have student discuss: What surprised you about this exercise? What kinds of "facts" or sources can you trust? How can you tell which evidence or sources are reliable? What kinds of questions can news articles answer, and where do they fall short?

Considerations

• Follow-up by giving students a set of questions about a different event or issue and having them work in groups to find factual answers to those questions on their own, or to find as many different "factual" answers to each question as they can dig up.
• For an extra challenge, have students investigate how scientific facts or statistics can support a range of arguments. "Factual understanding of the world is of course necessary, but it does not compel those who have different goals in a policy dilemma to suddenly agree with our approach. Critical thinking is what allows students not only to be aware of scientific facts surrounding a policy dilemma, but also to understand the limited role that those facts can take in determining the "best" policy option."⁵ Ask students to identify the goals or perspectives a set of facts supports or even to build a case for the opposite argument, using peer review science to support their claims.
• To help build the habit of questioning evidence, intentionally include false or misrepresented facts in a lecture and ask students to point them out.²

References