This BGeX activity aims at helping you identify the underlying values that are involved in public discussions or presentations of psychological information. The syllabus states that one of the main goals of the course is to help you learn to distinguish between good and poor psychological information, which involves critical thinking. In the 21st century, more and more people are turning toward the Web for that information, but often they do not know how to evaluate what they find there. Should you believe everything you see on the web? Of course not! This assignment will help you evaluate sites both now and in the future.
First, go to the Internet and access any site you feel comfortable with, which is in good taste, and that talks about human behavior and explore it. Then, do a one page review of the site using the following categories.
I. WEB SITE EVALUATION
II. STUDENT: Your name and class for this assignment on this line. (1 point)
III. SITE NAME AND ADDRESS: The site's complete name and Internet address or URL. This information must be done according to APA format. Consult your English teacher if you do not know it, but generally, it looks something like this: (1 point)
Mruk, C. J. Home page (2009). Retrieved 2-10-09 from http://www.firelands.bgsu.edu/~cmruk/index.html
IV. DESCRIPTION: Briefly summarize the information presented on the site by describing what it talks about, offers, suggests, advocates, and so forth. Use no more than two or three sentences here. (1 point)
V. ANALYSIS: Now begin to examine the quality of the information presented by the site with critical thinking. You might begin by looking through the whole site. After doing so, please make sure to address two issues: One is to identify the perspective the web site seems to rely on the most. The other is to identify what the site values, whether they are explicit (highly visible) or implicit (subtle or hidden). Be sure to use the terms "perspective" and "values" so that I can give points for this work. (2 points)
VI. CREDIBILITY: Next, think about your analysis. How much would you trust the information presented there? Would you recommend it to your loved ones if they need information on the topic? Use these kinds of questions to rate the over all credibility of this site on the following scale. Be sure to give the site a rating from 1 to 5 using those numbers and state the rationale you used in your assessment. (2 points)
VII: ALTERNATIVE WEB SITE AND RATING. Finally, find another site that concerns the same topic, list its URL, and rate it according to the same criteria. You do not have to justify the rationale. (1 point)
1 = Poor: personal opinion or largely commercial;
2 = Fair: some opinion or advertisements, but interesting information;
3 = Good: clear evidence of some research based information, even if advertisements or opinions are present;
4 = Excellent: Solid evidence of research based information that is highly useful, informative, based on good research, and relatively objective.
5 = Outstanding: Clear evidence of state-of-the art knowledge, in addition to overall excellence as defined above.
Finally, form is very important. A page is defined as 20-22 spaced lines of typed or word processed print on one sheet of paper. They may be either single or double spaced, but must be within the line limits. The page should have 1 inch margins on the top, bottom and sides. Use Times New Roman 12 point or Arial 12 point font. The reason for paying attention to these details is that succinct thought is more useful than rambling thought when doing assessments. (Form = Proper use of leadings and length, 2 points). I will be happy to examine a draft of your work to help make it better, but only during office hours. Be sure to include all the categories and titles in your final report as indicated by this example of a glyph.