Beyond truth: Teaching digital competences in secondary school against disinformation

Experts' views on practical teaching frameworks for basic digital education in Austria

Abstract

Growing dimensions of disinformation require an awareness-raising already at a young age of pupils in school classrooms. Various recent developments around the globe highlight the necessity of teaching and learning about disinformation in classrooms. Additionally, the basic digital education in Austria is being revised in 2022. Therefore, we discuss in this paper conditions and requirements for teaching and learning against disinformation. We draw on the concepts of phenomenon-based learning of multiliteracy, inoculation theory and civic online reasoning to propose practical teaching interventions for Austrian secondary schools divided into two target groups: lower secondary school for pupils aged 10-14 years and upper secondary school for pupils aged 14-18 years. Based on qualitative semi-structured expert interviews with teachers and practitioners (n=19), we adapt these theoretical approaches for implementation in Austrian’s secondary schools. Experts suggest that phenomenon-based learning trains the basic multiliteracies for younger pupils (10-14 years), while inoculation theory and civic online reasoning deepens resistance against disinformation for older pupils (14-18 years). Results show, that training of digital competences needs to be anchored mandatory in basic digital education with a holistic, cross-curricular approach so that competences are addressed in regular lessons distributed in all school subjects, starting from pupils’ age of 10.