Critical Online Reasoning Among Young Professionals: Overview of Demands and Skills in the Domains of Law, Medicine, and Teaching

In the twenty-first century, the increase in digitalization has been shaping learning and professional practice and has led to a great need for a new ‘cultural-technical skill’ in the digital age: a competent use of online information. This skillset plays an increasingly central role in several professions. This is particularly evident in the professional education of legal, and medical trainees and trainee teachers - professions for which evidence-based decision making and acting are particularly essential in practice. Increases in everyday Internet use, however, are not automatically accompanied by increases in corresponding skills in competently dealing with digital information. The aim of the BRIDGE research project, of which an overview is provided here, is therefore to assess and effectively promote these skills among young professionals in the domains of law, medicine, and teaching using a newly developed digital performance assessment and training. This paper aims to provide a conceptual framework of and empirical insights into the skillset baseline and thus a basis for the targeted development of training measures. In this context, the relevance of this skillset regarding the professional demands perceived by young professionals as well as its promotion in their university studies is also presented. Overall, the study participants reported that all facets of the presented skillset are relevant to their academic studies, with little difference between the three domains. A discrepancy between relevance and promotion of the skillset is shown, with promotion reported low to moderate in all three domains differing between the skill facets. In terms of the processed task the participants overall performed well, with differences depending on the domain and skill facet. These and further results are discussed in terms of the implications for educational and professional practice.