Development and evaluation of SPAT: a web page assessment tool
| Published date | 13 June 2008 |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/07378830810880360 |
| Date | 13 June 2008 |
| Pages | 274-286 |
| Author | Elizabeth M. LaRue |
| Subject Matter | Information & knowledge management,Library & information science |
Development and evaluation
of SPAT: a web page
assessment tool
Elizabeth M. LaRue
School of Nursing, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA
Abstract
Purpose – The purpose of this research is to measure the validity and the adoption of a new web
page assessment tool called SPAT (Site, Publisher, Audience, Timeliness).
Design/methodology/approach – A convenience sample of 37 Certified Diabetes Educators
(CDEs) participated in an evaluation of the web page assessment tool SPAT. Four web pages with
diabetes content were selected for a pre- and post-test evaluation. A follow-up questionnaire measured
adoption of the SPAT tool.
Findings – There was a significant difference when using the mnemonic SPAT to evaluate the site,
publisher and timeliness of a web page. Using SPAT to evaluate the audience of a web page also
showed an improvement. While there was an increase in reviewing the text of a web page for biases
after the SPAT intervention, it was not significant. The CDEs easily utilized SPAT with the diabetes
content web pages and their successful manipulation of the SPAT tool demonstrated face validity.
After learning of SPAT, responses to the follow-up questionnaire revealed adoption of the tool by
CDEs.
Practical implications – Use of SPAT may enable health care providers to systematically evaluate
health-related web page content.
Originality/value – SPAT is a novel tool that reinforces a user to practice basic literacy concepts.
The value of SPAT is that it is a people centered tool that may easily be used by anyone to evaluate
web pages.
Keywords Diabetes, Consumers, Internet
Paper type Research paper
Introduction
Over 80 percent of American internet users have sought health information on the
internet (Horrigan et al., 2006) but only 15 percent of those users evaluated the
information (Fox, 2006). Since information available on the internet comes from a
variety of sources such as personal testimonials, blogs, and wikis, users need to take
responsibility when assimilating information from the internet. With this
responsibility people have to learn to evaluate and filter the information for
themselves (Dede, 2002). Evaluation processes use broad schemas based on technical
measures of the presented information and criterion related to the content. It is a more
general process that occurs before filtering. Filtering is a complex process that goes
beyond searching, finding and evaluating information; it requires training and the
development of skills in the knowledge areas of interest. Filtering information requires
The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available at
www.emeraldinsight.com/0737-8831.htm
The author would like to acknowledge and thank Ellen Detlefsen for her support and guidance
throughout the study.
LHT
26,2
274
Received 20 November 2007
Revised 6 December 2007
Accepted 28 January 2008
Library Hi Tech
Vol. 26 No. 2, 2008
pp. 274-286
qEmerald Group Publishing Limited
0737-8831
DOI 10.1108/07378830810880360
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