Evaluating social media information: Impact of academic background, purpose of use, and perceived importance of information quality.

Issues with inaccurate information on social media have caused a rising concern. In addition to improving students' knowledge and skills in evaluating the quality of social media information, there is also a need to understand potential barriers such as students' lack of attention to information quality. Surveying over 1,800 students, the current study investigated the relationships among students' perceived importance of finding quality information, academic background, purposes of social media use, and evaluative actions taken. A multiple regression analysis revealed that two purposes of use and other academic backgrounds are related to the perceived importance of finding quality information from social media. Further investigation through correspond‐ ence analysis revealed distinctive clusters of evaluative actions when the purpose of use was to get background information from social media – the purpose closely related to the perceived importance of finding quality information. Implications of the findings on information literacy education were discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]