INFORMATION LITERACY ON THE WEB.

Abstract

One of the most important literacy skills in today's information society is the ability to deter-mine the credibility of online information. Users sort through a staggering number of websites while discerning which will provide satisfactory information. In this study, 70 college students assessed the credibility of health websites with a low and high design quality in either low or high credibility groups. The study's purpose was to understand if students relied more on textu-al or visual cues in determining credibility and to understand if this affected their recall of those cues later. The results indicate that when viewing a high credibility website, high design quality will bolster the credibility perception, but design quality will not compensate for a low credibility website. The recall test also indicated that credibility does impact the participants' recall of visual and textual cues. Implications are discussed in light of the Elaboration Likelihood Model. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]