A02: Development of Economics Students’ Domain-Specific Critical Online Reasoning (DOM-COR) Skills over the Course of Their Bachelor Studies and Key Factors Influencing DOM-COR

目前的研究和实践都一致表明，当今的经济学专业学生将互联网作为他们学习的主要信息来源。学生和讲师认为，搜索和评估在线信息的技能对于成功学习经济学至关重要。越来越多的证据表明，学生在基于互联网的学习中经常获得与学科相关的误解，导致对经济学的扭曲理解。最近的研究表明，经济学和社会领域的最新发展表明，批判性在线推理(COR)教学应该更深入地植根于经济学教育，以减少学生甚至毕业生在相应技能方面的巨大差距。今天的教育工作者需要有效的评估来捕捉学生的COR技能，以便能够设计有效的计划，为学生利用互联网进行有能力的(自我指导的)学习做好准备。根据以前的研究，A02将特定领域(DOM)-COR定义为使用互联网上与经济相关的信息来获取可靠知识和合理决策的必要技能集。DOM-COR结构按照在线信息获取、关键信息评估、证据推理、论证和综合三个方面进行建模。A02旨在为学生的DOM-COR发展提供客观和可靠的评估，允许有效的测试分数解释，并满足大学内外的诊断和预测需求。为了有效地评估DOM-COR技能，A02使用了基于情景的任务，采用了两种形式的新开发和验证的性能评估-真实互联网和类似互联网的模拟，这让学生沉浸在一个现实的问题中，他们必须根据他们在学习中越来越多地使用的免费在线资源来解决这个问题。A02纵向分析了课程和学习机会对DOM-COR技能发展的影响以及迄今尚未研究的其他关键个人和背景协变量。根据随机抽样的300名经济学学生和300名社会科学学生作为对照组，A02产生了独特的数据和发现，(I)关于学生在经济学方面的DOM-CORE的发展，(Ii)关于关键的个人和机构协变量，以及(Iii)关于关键的学习结果的关系。这样，A02为教学干预的概念发展提供了必要的基础，以有效地促进DOM-COR(在第二研究阶段)。A02提供的数据和结果将用于所有研究单位项目和其他项目的后续分析；例如，对在线信息和学习材料的分析，以及B-项目，允许对适合性进行批判性评估，并将“现实世界”在线资源专业地整合到高等教育中，以帮助提高学生的学习结果和学习成功。

Current research and practice uniformly show that today’s students of economics use the Internet as the main source of information for their studies. Students and lecturers rate the skills of searching for and evaluating online information as crucial for successfully studying economics. There is growing evidence that students often acquire subject-related misconceptions in Internet-based learning, resulting in a distorted understanding of economics. Current developments in economics and societal fields highlight that teaching critical online reasoning (COR) should be anchored more deeply in economics education to reduce the substantial deficits in corresponding skills among students and even graduates, as shown in recent studies. Today’s educators need valid assessments that capture students’ COR skills to be able to design effective programs that prepare students for competent (self-directed) learning using the Internet. Based on prior research, A02 defines domain-specific (DOM)-COR as the necessary skillset for using economics-related information from the Internet to derive warranted knowledge and reasoned decisions. The DOM-COR construct is modeled in accordance with the three facets: online information acquisition, critical information evaluation, reasoning with evidence, argumentation and synthesis. A02 aims to provide an objective and reliable assessment of students’ DOM-COR development that allows for valid test score interpretations and meets diagnostic and prognostic needs in and outside of university contexts. To validly assess DOM-COR skills, A02 uses scenario-based tasks, employing newly developed and validated performance assessments in two formats—the real Internet and Internet-like simulations, which immerse students in a realistic problem that they have to solve based on the freely available online resources that they increasingly use in their studies. The effects of curricula and learning opportunities on the development of DOM-COR skills and other key personal and contextual covariates that have not been researched thus far are longitudinally analyzed in A02. Based on a random sample of n=300 economics students, with n=300 social sciences students serving as a comparison group, A02 generates unique data and findings, (i) on the development of students’ DOM-COR in economics, (ii) on key personal and institutional covariates and (iii) on the relation to key learning outcomes. In this way, A02 provides a necessary basis for the conceptual development of instructional interventions to effectively foster DOM-COR (in the 2nd research phase). A02 provides data and findings that will be used in subsequent analyses in all research unit projects and beyond; e.g., analyses of the online information and learning materials, together with B-projects, allow for critical appraisals of fit, and professional integration of ‘real-world’ online sources into higher education to help to improve students’ learning outcomes and study success.