Reading for University or for Myself? Effects of Context and Beliefs About Science on College Students' Document Selection

Previous research on document selection has found that college-level readers are generally able to differentiate trustworthy from less trustworthy sources. Yet, a preference for selecting trustworthy sources may depend on features of the reading situation and readers' beliefs in science. In the current study, college students were tasked with selecting documents for either a university assignment or a personal project (external context manipulation) using documents that varied in the type of source (i.e., a source with scientific expertise or a source with personal experiences) as a within-participants manipulation. Moreover, participants' beliefs about science and knowledge about how science works were assessed. In two experiments (N = 165 and N = 125), participants selected documents for further reading for four target topics. In Experiment 2, a personal condition was added that included mention of an external audience for the assignment. Like in previous studies, participants in both experiments preferred scientific-expertise sources over personal-experiences sources. However, their likelihood of selecting a personal-experiences source was higher in a personal context without an external audience (compared to university context). More positive beliefs about science as well as knowledge about how science works were associated with a lower probability of selecting sources with personal experiences. Experiment 2 replicated the results of Experiment 1 and extended the findings regarding external context. Although college-level readers generally prefer scientific sources, their selection of sources without scientific expertise also depends on the external reading context as well as on personal beliefs and knowledge about science.