Wikipedia is being used by all levels of students in education. Many people wonder how this free online information service affects the subject knowledge of students. This also raises questions about the accuracy of the information in Wikipedia, since the database of information has been placed online by the general public and not from a source such as Encyclopedia Britannica.
The reality is that Wikipedia has been accessed heavily by Internet users. Out of 100 prominent K – 12 education terms in U.S. and world history, these terms came up first 87 times and second 12 times. This indicates that students and others are accessing this information on a regular basis, because they are very popular (Michael Petrilli, Hoover Institution of Stanford University).
Credibility of Wikipedia
Searching Wikipedia for accurate information is a good choice for most students as long as they are searching for mainstream information. Wikipedia is not recommended for students in graduate school, because their studies tend to be less mainstream (Wiki expert Alexander M. C. Halavais, Chronicle of Higher Education, October 2006).
Mainstream terms such as the American Civil War are not prone to many errors; however, the information may be biased one way on the other based on the views of the person entering the information. The important point to remember about Wikipedia entries are that they are not necessarily posted by scholars or unbiased sources.
Ten history educational terms were randomly selected and compared with entries in both Wikipedia and Encyclopedia Britannica. These terms were: American Civil War, Panama Canal, Dust Bowl, California Gold Rush, Pony Express, Great White Fleet, Abraham Lincoln, War of 1812, Louisiana Purchase, and the New Deal.
All entries in the Wikipedia were typically longer and provided a lot of information. The entries in the Encyclopedia Britannica where shorter, however the information was comparable. There were few differences between the content of the information in both sources. This appears to indicate that the information in Wikipedia is accurate enough to be used in education.
Education Support for Wikipedia
Although Wikipedia can be easily blocked by schools to keep it out of the classrooms and libraries, this online source of information cannot be blocked from homes, public venues, and public libraries.
This presents a challenge to education. Does education accept Wikipedia or ban it from use in schools? Of course this would be similar to banning all sources of information students use for their education except those approved by local school boards.
Now that education has moved into the 21st century, the rapid growth of all forms of online information is available to students, including those such as Wikipedia. Schools are hard pressed to roll back the calendar and expect students not to use all available resources to help them learn.
Wikipedia is here to stay and the impact on education is not as dire as it appears. Like everything else on the Internet, there is good information and erroneous information. Educators should help students learn to recognize wrong and biased information in Wikipedia, because at least in U.S. history topics, the information appears to be creditable.
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