Digital Literacy and Critical Thinking in Higher Education

Gaps and Training Opportunities in the Post-Truth Era

Bibliographic Data

ID22047855
AuthorsMónica Rodríguez-Díaz (Tecnológico de Monterrey, corresponding author), Raúl Rodríguez Ferrándiz (0000-0003-1341-255X, University of Alicante, corresponding author)
Year2026
Volume16
Issue5
Pages684
Publication date2026-04-24
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueEducation Sciences (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 2227-7102 • E-ISSN: 2227-7102
PublisherMDPI AG (PUBLISHER • IT)
DOI10.3390/educsci16050684
OpenAlexW7155486723
LanguageEN
References cited35

Disinformation is a global challenge that affects areas such as politics, health, economics, and science and is spread rapidly by social media (SM), suggesting the necessity of advancing educational proposals to strengthen critical thinking (CT) and digital literacy (DL). This quantitative, non-experimental, descriptive study identified the self-perception that master’s students (n = 72; at three Spanish universities; October 2024–March 2025) have regarding their DL, along with their CT, in post-truth and fake news settings. A self-administered online questionnaire (53 items) was conducted, covering aspects such as the responsible use of information and platforms, algorithmic perceptions, actions taken to verify this information, and concepts of CT, post-truth, and fake news. The results show that Instagram (97%) and WhatsApp (96%) predominated, with a notable proportion of users (86%) reporting that algorithms influenced them ‘highly’ or ‘moderately’. Despite being aware of disinformation they find on social media (65%) as well as its close link to hate speech (90% who ‘strongly’ or ‘somewhat’ agreed), this knowledge does not fully translate into taking measures to counter it. In fact 61% of respondents report sharing news on at least some occasions, while only 25% are able to identify a professional fact-checking organization. In conclusion, these findings suggest the merit of assessing the prevalence of skills such as Critical Thinking (CT) and strategies like fact-checking among students in other postgraduate education systems. Such assessments could inform the potential promotion of media and digital literacy as cross-curricular skills in education. This approach would help bridge the gap between theoretical knowledge and the active verification needed to counter disinformation

Critical thinking · Digital Literacy · Digital media · Disinformation · Information literacy · Literacy · Media literacy · Social media · Digital Education and Society · Education and Critical Thinking Development · Misinformation and Its Impacts

Tools

Open DOIOpen Access