On EducationThis Is Your Education On WikipediaWhat are the effects of the Wikipedia environment on the critical thinking, information literacy, and research skills of its participants?
Too much commentary on what students learn from Wikipedia stops with the content of articles and fails to examine what students learn from participating in the culture of Wikipedia.
Educators know that education is as much about process as it is about product. They understand that students “learn by doingâ€, by taking part in communities of practice. What do students learn by playing the Wikipedia online game? Answers to that question can be gleaned from those who have participated in the full range of Wikipedia activities and seen how it really operates beneath the surface. Those who wish to learn more, while escaping the troubles of personal participation, may sample the narratives and the occasional critical reflection that one finds at
The Wikipedia Review.
The effects of using Wikipedia as a source of information is a research question.
The effects of participating more broadly in Wikipedian activities, from the editing game to the policy-making game, is another research question.
Even a bad source of information and a bad guide to the norms of research methodology can “
up the ante on critical thinking and information literacy†—
if the user is capable of reflecting on its deficiencies.
Whether Wikipedia helps or hinders the user in gaining that capacity is yet another research question.
Educators are aware that learners have many different paths to knowledge. Among the most obvious are these:
- Learning by being told.
- Learning by doing things for oneself.
- Learning by watching what others do.
What do people learn from participating in the full range of activities provided by the Wikipedia website, considered with regard to each of these modes?
Some of the questions that educational researchers would naturally think to ask about the Wikipedia experience are these:
- What do people learn about the ethical norms of journalism, research, and scholarship?
- What do people learn about the intellectual norms of journalism, research, and scholarship?
For example, questions that one might ask under the indicated headings are these:
- {1 b} What do people learn about the relative values of primary and secondary sources from reading the relevant policy pages in Wikipedia?
- {3 a} What do people learn about plagiarism from watching what others do in Wikipedia?
See
Wikipedia Review : Guide to Wikipedia for Reporters and Researchers for ongoing discussion.
This post has been edited by Jonny Cache:
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