Interest and effort: exploring the relationship between students Covid-19 interest and information-seeking behavior

Although much is known about how students evaluate scientific information about contentious issues in classroom or laboratory contexts, less is known about how students do so in their daily life. This study hopes to address that gap, using survey data to study how high school students from the Midwest United States obtained and evaluated information about the COVID-19 pandemic as it first emerged. Students reported how often they obtained information from various sources, what information formats they tended to use, and how they evaluated new information. Students also reported their level of interest in various aspects of the pandemic. We identified several profiles of how students obtain information, like through personal connections, social media, or traditional news sources. Students interests varied, with topics related to personal wellbeing is most likely to be endorsed by students with more abstract topics like the structure of a virus being less appealing. Interest predicted the likelihood of engaging in effortful information-seeking behavior. There were also significant relationships between how students obtained information and the strategies used to evaluate it. This paper contributes new insights into what interests students, and how they seek and evaluate information in the midst of crisis.