Refutation texts are designed to facilitate the revision of inaccurate knowledge; however, studies have documented backfire effects wherein respondents become less accurate when exposed to a factual correction compared to another. Here, we explored whether epistemic emotions mediated knowledge revision or backfire processes when reading…

The psychology of science resistance, doubt, and denial has never had clearer consequences than during the COVID-19 pandemic. This manuscript explores how misconceptions about climate change, vaccines, and COVID-19 cannot be understood apart from the conscious and unconscious motivations and emotions which contribute to public (mis)understanding…

Texts presenting novel numerical data can shift learners' attitudes and conceptions about controversial science topics. However, little is known about the mechanisms underlying this conceptual change. The purpose of this study was to investigate two potential mechanisms that underlie learning from novel data: numerical estimation skills and…

We investigated knowledge and attitudes before and after reading refutation texts augmented by different kinds of persuasive information and how emotions mediated the process of knowledge and attitude change. Undergraduates (N = 424) enrolled in 4 universities from 3 countries read a refutation text on genetically modified foods (GMFs) and were…

Informal learning environments, such as museums, provide unique opportunities for science learning. They are deliberately designed to impact public understanding of science and shape visitors' attitudes and behaviors. As a developing technology, augmented reality (AR) offers the transformative potential to support museums' educational missions by…

Prior research from the field of science communication shows that, upon reading journalistic articles about novel scientific findings, readers who recognize the tentative nature of the findings rate the journalistic article that reports these findings as less credible. Apparently, readers' appraisal is influenced by misconceptions about the…

Individuals often have misconceptions about education policy issues. Prior research has shown that refutation texts can address misconceptions in other areas (e.g., climate change, GMOs); this study is the first to explore whether participants' views on controversial education policies--the Common Core State Standards and charter schools--are…

America's rank among the lowest of developed countries in evolution acceptance rates is due, at least in part, to religious and political opposition. The negative correlations among religiosity, political ideology, and evolution acceptance in the United States have been documented repeatedly, and comfort with evolution varies by region with…

The purpose of this design based research study was to better understand and build from students' perceptual experiences of visual representations of the greenhouse effect. Twenty undergraduate students were interviewed as they engaged with an online visualization for the learning of the greenhouse effect. We found that, even though all students…

Science is of critical importance to daily life in a knowledge society and has a significant influence on many everyday decisions. As scientific problems increase in their number and complexity, so do the challenges facing the public in understanding these issues. Our objective is to focus on 3 of those challenges: the challenge of reasoning about…

Teaching and learning about complex scientific content, such as biological evolution, is challenging in part because students have a difficult time seeing the relevance of evolution in their everyday lives. The purpose of this study was to explore the effectiveness of the Teaching for Transformative Experiences in Science (TTES) model (Pugh, 2002)…

Recent research has shown that for some topics, messages to refute and revise misconceptions may backfire. The current research offers one possible account for this backfire effect (i.e., the ironic strengthening of belief in erroneous information after an attempted refutation) from an educational psychology perspective and examines whether…

Engagement is one of the hottest research topics in the field of educational psychology. Research shows that multifarious benefits occur when students are engaged in their own learning, including increased motivation and achievement. However, there is little agreement on a concrete definition and effective measurement of engagement. This special…

Refutation texts have been shown to be effective at promoting knowledge revision. It has been suggested that refutation texts are most effective when the misconception and the correct information are co-activated and integrated with causal networks that support the correct information. We explored two augmentations to a refutation text that might…

Overcoming students' misconceptions may be a challenge when teaching about phenomena such as climate change. Students tend to cite short-term weather effects as evidence to support or refute long-term climate transformations, which displays a fundamental misunderstanding about weather and climate distinctions. Confusion about weather and climate…