67% of Brazilian 15-year-old students unable to differentiate between fact and opinion, says OECD report

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – The rate is above the average recorded among students in 79 other countries analyzed by the organization, which is 53%.

An estimated 67% of 15-year-old students in Brazil – almost 7 out of 10 – are unable to differentiate between facts and opinions when reading texts, according to a report released this week by the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD).

The rate is above the average recorded in students from 79 other countries analyzed by the organization, which is 53%.

In the document “21st Century Readers: Developing Literacy Skills in a Digital World,” the OECD states that digital technologies are responsible for a greater spread of information, with a variety of formats that do not always fit into traditional models.

This makes it necessary to teach students to distinguish between texts and the quality of the emails received. For example, if they are criminal scams to steal data (phishing) or even unwanted advertisements (spam).

“Digital technologies have enabled the diffusion of all types of information, replacing traditional formats such as newspapers, which generally make a more careful selection of content,” points out an excerpt from the report.

The risk, the document says, is that misinformation will lead to “political polarization, decreased trust in public institutions, and a lack of credibility in democracy.”

“The opportunity for students to learn in school how to detect whether information is subjective or biased is strongly associated with the estimated percentage of successful scores on the item that focuses on distinguishing facts from opinions on the PISA [Programme for International Student Assessment, taken every 3 years] reading assessment. On average in OECD countries, 55% of students reported having been trained in school on how to recognize whether information is biased, while 46% of students reported this in Brazil,” says Ikeda.

Critical Thinking

For Jane Reolo, coordinator of Technology Solutions at Instituto Unibanco, students in Brazil have greater difficulty in differentiating facts from opinions because they are not guided to develop critical thinking in school.

According to her, historically students are trained to look for right and wrong answers within a text, but not to analyze the arguments.

“Differentiating fact and opinion demands comparative analysis. It is looking at something and, from evidence and comparisons, being able to differentiate. The research says that our boys and girls don’t know how to do this. But, historically, our school prepares students to find the right answer. In a universe with so much information as the internet is, schools in general still don’t offer this,” he says.

To minimize the risks, it is necessary to train the skills of these young people with practices that stimulate argumentation and the exchange of ideas.

“To discern fact from opinion is to increase the analytical capacity. The student needs to be exposed to more information, to make groups in which one defends an opinion and another defends another, with argumentation and counter-argumentation, and reach consensus. This exercise the school does not do. Because it takes too much time. Maybe our 45-minute class structure doesn’t allow it,” analyzes Reolo.

Digital Literacy

The lack of an education focused on digital tools in the country raises even more concern when analyzed alongside other data that the OECD report provides.

There has been an increase in access to digital tools at home. In Brazil, in 2003 there was internet connection in 20% of these students’ homes. The rate rose to 60% in 2018.

But there is a difference between students from schools in more and less favored regions. In 2018, just under 30% of students in less favored schools had access to a computer and internet at home. In more advantaged schools, the rate was nearly 90%. With a computer and internet at home, connection time increased.

The report points out that even before the pandemic, 15-year-old students in Brazil spent 36 hours a week online (close to the OECD average of 35 hours), but most of the time the connection occurred outside the school environment. In 2018, it was 31 hours online outside of schools and 5 hours inside. On the OECD average, it was 27 hours outside of schools and 8 hours in schools. The report does not provide current data on the period of suspension of face-to-face classes.

Being online does not automatically result in digital literacy. It is important to study further how students are using the Internet and what kind of support or training they have received. This will help inform policies and practices that improve students’ digital literacy. In Brazil especially, this would be important because 31 of the 36 hours online are outside of schools, likely without any supervision or guidance.

Due to the current pandemic, online hours outside of schools may have increased, although we do not have comparable data at the moment,” says Miyako Ikeda of the OECD.

Reolo makes a similar analysis. “Being online is not a criterion of quality. They are on the Internet, but doing what? With what mediation? Children and young people, individuals who are under construction, do not have the skills and competencies to filter what they see. They are exposed,” he evaluates.

Regarding the approach to Internet use in schools, the Brazilian institutions told the OECD that the content is transversal in all subjects and that there is no specific training on the subject in the curriculum.

Among the OECD countries, on average, 40% of school curricula include digital literacy. Estonia stands out, with 70% of the curriculum, followed by South Korea and Kazakhstan, with just over 60%.

“A school doesn’t have to have a computer class that teaches how to use Word, for example, because programs change so much. But it can offer the student the possibility of making a presentation, for example, writing the theme on the blackboard, or on a poster, or in Power Point, differentiating the range that this information will reach: on the blackboard, only those in the room will see it. The poster can be placed in the hallway, or at the corner sale. The Power Point can be online and reach everyone. The use of tools can be incorporated to the practices”, Reolo evaluates.

The challenge lies in the training of teachers, many of whom lack digital skills, which was made clear during the pandemic.

Reolo reports experiences in São Paulo and in Ceará, before the pandemic, in which teachers with technology skills were incorporated to the school’s professional staff. They helped other teachers to use the tools in the classroom, offering possibilities of approach. In the pandemic, they were the link for the transition from face-to-face to remote teaching.

“The risk of leaving the transversal content and not putting it in the curriculum is that, without help, this teacher may claim lack of time to address the issue,” he says.

Source: G1