Forming Students' Skills in Evaluating the Reliability of Information in Internet Sources

University students increasingly rely on internet sources for academic work, yet many of them judge online information by its appearance, popularity or position in search results. This article addresses the pedagogical problem of forming students' skills in evaluating the reliability of information in internet sources, with a focus on English-language content used in foreign language education. On the basis of the civic online reasoning research, the SIFT method and the concept of lateral reading, the author defines the structure of the skill (motivational, cognitive, operational and reflective components), develops criteria and levels of its formation, and proposes a four-stage methodology. The methodology was tested with 54 undergraduate students over one semester using a pre-test/post-test design with five performance tasks based on authentic web materials. The mean composite score increased from 9.8 to 16.4 out of 25 (t(53) = 12.41, p < .001, dz = 1.69). The share of students at the proficient and advanced levels grew from 19% to 63%, and the proportion of students who first verified an unknown site by leaving it (lateral reading) rose from 7% to 48%. The findings demonstrate that the skill can be formed purposefully when students practise short, repeated verification routines on authentic internet materials and reflect on their own evaluation decisions.