Beyond Access to Religious Information: Religious Knowledge Evaluation among Generation Z Pre-service Teachers in Digital Environments
Keywords:
digital religious literacy, epistemic verification, information evaluation, pre-service teachers, Generation ZAbstract
Background: Digital access to religious information is now routine among Generation Z pre-service elementary teachers, but access by itself says little about whether students can evaluate what they find. This study looked at three levels of religious-information evaluation: exposure, self-reported evaluation orientation, and articulated reasoning. Methods: We ran an exploratory survey with 108 pre-service teachers aged 19-22 (M = 20.63, SD = 1.13). Respondents reported their access patterns, rated five evaluation-orientation indicators, and answered an open-ended reflective item; 56 of them also completed a written interview. Quantitative data were analyzed descriptively and through group comparisons, and qualitative responses were coded thematically. Results: Religious content was accessed most often through TikTok (74.1%), Instagram (66.7%), and YouTube (59.3%). Evaluation-orientation scores were moderately high (M = 3.85-4.19). Willingness to understand differing views (M = 4.19) exceeded active cross-source comparison (M = 3.85; p < .001), pointing to a gap between epistemic openness and epistemic verification. Cross-source verification (51.9%) and social-authority consultation (37.0%) were the most common reasoning strategies. Generative AI users reported lower authority-cue consideration and cross-source comparison than non-users (p = .002). Conclusions: Exposure, evaluation orientation, and articulated reasoning did not move together, which suggests digital religious literacy is multidimensional. Teacher education programs should address religious-information evaluation explicitly in professional preparation.
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