Abstract:

The growing prevalence of misinformation, disinformation, and malinformation presents new challenges for higher education, where students increasingly navigate complex digital information environments. Although digital and media literacy initiatives have expanded, the degree to which they are integrated into course design remains uneven. Many instructors are unaware of how their pedagogical choices may inadvertently increase student exposure to uncurated or misleading information, or how literacy strategies can be proportionally aligned with that exposure. To address this gap, this work introduces a diagnostic tool that supports instructors in assessing their course’s vulnerability to misinformation and identifying appropriate pedagogical responses.

The work builds firstly on a typology that maps two intersecting dimensions of teaching and learning. The first dimension, Pedagogical Exposure Risk, captures the extent to which students engage with uncurated or potentially unreliable information sources. At one end of the continuum are highly controlled environments—such as lecture-based teaching—where instructors provide all materials; at the other are inquiry-driven or project-based methods where learners independently seek information from diverse online sources. The second dimension, Fake News Literacy Integration, reflects how deliberately misinformation awareness, verification strategies, and critical evaluation skills are embedded into a course.

Crossing these axes produces four learning environments: Type I (Low Exposure / Low Integration): Highly controlled learning settings where misinformation risks are limited but literacy development is minimal; Type II (Low Exposure / High Integration): Environments in which curated content is paired with structured opportunities for critical reflection and foundational literacy development; Type III (High Exposure / Low Integration): Pedagogically vulnerable contexts in which students freely explore uncurated information with limited guidance or protective literacy scaffolding; Type V (High Exposure / High Integration): Open, inquiry-driven settings where strong literacy strategies support students in navigating complex information landscapes with autonomy and resilience.

Building on this typology, the diagnostic tool operationalizes these dimensions into measurable indicators. Each axis is decomposed into observable course characteristics— for example, degree of student autonomy in sourcing materials, reliance on social media or general web searches, use of fact-checking activities, presence of explicit learning outcomes on source evaluation, etc.. Unlike classification tools aimed at standardization, this diagnostic instrument is designed to support reflective pedagogical decision-making. Each quadrant is associated with recommendations to help instructors strengthen their course’s alignment:

The diagnostic tool thus serves as both an evaluative and developmental instrument. By making the relationship between pedagogical exposure and literacy integration visible, it empowers instructors to design more coherent, proportional, and protective learning environments. Beyond supporting individual course redesign, the tool also offers value for curriculum planning, professional development, and institutional strategies aimed at strengthening digital literacy across higher education.

Keywords:

Misinformation, digital literacy, assessment tool, higher education.