Abstract
The proliferation of fake news across digital platforms has intensified concerns regarding the quality and reliability of political information among college students. This study examined the relationship between fake news exposure and political attitudes among Bachelor of Secondary Education (BSED)–Social Studies students in a private college in Bulacan, Philippines. A quantitative correlational research design was employed, involving 202 officially enrolled BSED–Social Studies students selected through universal sampling. A structured Likert-scale questionnaire was used to measure the respondents’ level of fake news exposure and political attitudes. Descriptive statistics were utilized to summarize the levels of the study variables, while Spearman’s rank-order correlation was employed to determine the relationship between fake news exposure and political attitudes. The findings indicated that respondents experienced moderate exposure to fake news across digital platforms. In terms of political attitudes, the respondents demonstrated varying levels across the measured dimensions, reflecting differences in their political perceptions and dispositions. The correlation analysis revealed a weak negative and statistically non-significant relationship between fake news exposure and political attitudes, with a Spearman’s rho of −0.198 and a significance value of 0.478 at the 0.05 level. Thus, the null hypothesis stating that there was no significant relationship between fake news exposure and political attitudes was not rejected. The findings suggest that although a slight inverse association was observed, fake news exposure was not significantly associated with the political attitudes of BSED–Social Studies students. The study recommends strengthening media and information literacy, source verification, critical evaluation of political content, and responsible digital engagement to help students make informed political judgments and participate meaningfully in democratic discourse.