I have been a fan of the CRAP test, but a recent article by John Warner in Inside Higher Ed<\/a> has me rethinking this. The article points out that knowledge and motivation are essential to getting at the truth, and no checklist can effectively substitute for those things.<\/p>\n Here is an excerpt:<\/p>\n Experienced academics don\u2019t actually use the CRAAP test. The CRAAP test is an approximation of a much more sophisticated process rooted in that domain knowledge. Giving it to students as a substitute for knowledge may not be doing them any favors.<\/p>\n In fact, many students in the Stanford study applied checklists like the CRAAP test and came up with incorrect assumptions about the reliability of the sources anyway.<\/p>\n This is when I begin to panic and think that we may have an unsolvable problem on our hands, but Caufield and the Stanford researchers point us in a different direction.<\/p>\n Rather than training students to evaluate sources \u2013 as has been our practice for generations \u2013 we need to adapt and help them not understand sources, but the \u201cweb\u201d itself.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n And a little later,\u00a0by way of conclusion, the author poses the following questions:<\/p>\n [W]hat if checklists are only appropriate for things we\u2019ve already learned, but are prone to forget, like medical professionals practicing the proper pre-surgery practices? What is the impact of checklists on people who have not yet developed disciplinary instincts, or who have yet to experience the full complexities of their field?<\/p>\n What happens both in terms of motivation and curiosity when we substitute checklists for literacy and knowledge?<\/p><\/blockquote>\n What do you think? I ask this question, as you know, as someone who has used the CRAAP or CRAP Test in the past. And, for those who have missed it, I should emphasize that the CRAPpy Song<\/a>, which teaches the CRAP or CRAAP Test, by my colleague Chad Bauman, is now back online after a long absence from YouTube!<\/p>\n