Pinoy 15-year-olds among most vulnerable to fake news —study

Filipino youth were among the most vulnerable to fake news, latest data from the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) showed.

According to PISA, the most common digital skill taught at school on average across Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries is understanding the consequences of making information publicly available online, while the least common skill taught was how to detect phishing or spam emails (76% and 41% of students in OECD countries reported being taught this during their entire school experience).

"There are also considerable differences across and within countries. An average of 54% of students in OECD countries reported being trained at school on how to recognize whether information is biased or not," it said.

Among OECD countries, PISA said over 70% of students reported receiving this training in Australia, Canada, Denmark, and the United States.

However, less than 45% of students reported received this training in Israel, Latvia, the Slovak Republic, Slovenia, and Switzerland.

"The percentage difference in students who were taught how to detect biased information between students from socio-economic advantaged and disadvantaged backgrounds across OECD countries was 8 percentage points in favour of advantaged students," PISA said.

In Belgium, Denmark, Germany, Luxembourg, Sweden, the United Kingdom and the United States, PISA said this difference is around 14 percentage points or higher.

PISA 2018 also included several scenario-based tasks where students were asked to rate how useful different strategies were to solve a particular reading situation and among these scenarios asked students to click on the link of an email from a well-known mobile operator and fill out a form with their data to win a smartphone, also known as phishing emails.

PISA said approximately 40% of students on average across OECD countries responded that clicking on the link was somewhat appropriate or very appropriate.

Students in Denmark, Germany, Ireland, Japan, the Netherlands, and the United Kingdom scored the highest in the index of knowledge of reading strategies for assessing the credibility of sources (higher than 0.20 points) across all participating countries and economies in PISA 2018.

Meanwhile, students in Baku (Azerbaijan), Indonesia, Kazakhstan, the Philippines, and Thailand had the lowest scores in this index (lower than -0.65 points).

Further, students in Chile, Colombia, Hungary, Korea, Mexico, and Turkey had the lowest scores in this index (lower than -0.20 points) among OECD countries.

"Students from advantaged socio-economic backgrounds in all participating countries and economies in PISA 2018 scored higher in the index of knowledge of reading strategies for assessing the credibility of sources than students from disadvantaged socio-economic backgrounds," PISA said.

Students from Germany, Luxembourg, Portugal, Switzerland and the United States reported the largest socio-economic gap (0.65 points or higher) in this index of knowledge of strategies for assessing the credibility of sources, while Albania, Baku (Azerbaijan), Kazakhstan, and Macao (China) reported the smallest socio-economic gap (lower than 0.15 points).

Canada, Estonia, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Korea, Latvia, and Lithuania reported the smallest socio-economic gap (lower than 0.35 points).

"PISA 2018 data shows that, on average across OECD countries, about one-third (32% ) of the difference in reading performance between socio-economically advantaged and disadvantaged students is the indirect result of disparities in socio-economically advantaged and disadvantaged students’ knowledge of effective reading strategies," PISA said.

It added that empirical studies have shown that classroom interventions aimed at developing students' assessment of information reliability are effective in improving students' critical thinking when comprehending multiple documents.

In 2019, the Philippines performed the poorest out of 79 countries in a reading literacy assessment conducted by OECD.

The PISA 2018 results showed that Filipino students scored a mean of 340 points in the reading comprehension exam, which falls way below the OECD average of 487 points.—Ma. Angelica Garcia/LDF, GMA News