Fostering students' evaluation behaviour while searching the internet

A program for teaching 9th graders course content (history) and how they should evaluate information found on the WWW was designed and tested. Goal of the program was to teach content, evaluations skills, and to achieve transfer of these skills to a different domain. In the design of the program the principles of two transfer theories were combined using a design-based research approach. Results revealed that the program improved students’ evaluation behaviour. Compared to the students of the control condition, the evaluation skills of students in the experimental condition improved to a higher level, but did not lead to transfer. Students in the experimental classes scored higher on the final content exam than students in the control class.