Recently, talk of "fake news" -- and its relation to wider epistemic crises, from climate denialism to the creep of global ethno-nationalism -- has renewed attention to media literacy in education. For some, revived discussions of media literacy offer protection (e.g., strategies for identifying and critiquing media bias and…

Research suggests exposure to misinformation continues to impact belief and reasoning, even if that misinformation has been corrected (referred to as the "Continued Influence Effect, CIE"). The proposed experiment explores two potentially important factors that may impact the effect: (a) learner age and (b) length of delay between…

The current study investigated the role of metacognition with respect to the consequences of exposures to inaccurate information. Previous work has consistently demonstrated that exposures to inaccuracies can confuse people and even encourage reliance on the falsehoods. We specifically examined whether people are aware of their likelihood of being…

Many high school and first-year university courses include discussion of the magnetic effect of currents. Frequently discussed textbook examples include long, straight wires, circular current loops, and solenoids, partly because these examples are tractable mathematically. The solenoid naturally leads to discussion on magnetic materials since it…

Recent reforms in science education have promoted students' understanding of how science works, including the methodological approaches used by scientists. Given that teachers are expected to teach and promote methodological pluralism, it is worth examining how teachers understand and view scientific methods, particularly when scientific methods…

Set against a backdrop of diminished interest in drug education outside of school settings in Ireland, this paper draws from 10 years of professional practice in the field of drug education and prevention, to reflect on illicit drug use in Ireland and on the lay understandings of illicit drug use encountered by this practitioner. This paper sets…

When studying the reception history of the Bible, should students be asked to suspend judgment on a particular interpretation for the sake of the pedagogical goals of the course? Or is their judgment essential to the process of learning and understanding? This essay explores the pedagogical puzzle of right interpretation and wrong interpretation…

Many people with strong religious beliefs in the United States struggle with trusting the pronouncements of scientists. This is primarily because they have come to believe that science offers a perspective on ultimate questions such as origins and life after death that conflicts with their own. Education and public outreach efforts by scientists…

One particular challenge in chemistry learning is developing students' atomic level understanding of chemical processes. It is necessary to help students learn how to critique atomic models rather than accept them as ''truth.'' In this study, we used a resources-based framework to examine how students made sense of macroscopic level information to…

In this study we consider a classic paradox of infinity and its variations and suggest how the sources of misleading intuition can be analysed using the concept of uniform convergence of functions. We then examine how six mathematics honour students engage with a variation of the paradox. Despite their advanced mathematical training, the…

Despite the breadth and depth of educational neuroscience research and teachers' interest in neuroscience, teachers often have limited access to reputable sources. As a result, neuromyths--misapplied or over-simplified claims related to brain science--have proliferated. School Psychologists have training in education, applied neuroscience, and…

Children's naive theories include misconceptions which can interfere with science learning. This research examined the effect of pairing anomalies with alternative theories, and their order of presentation, on children's belief revision. Children believe that heavy objects sink and light ones float. In a pre-, mid-, and post-test design,…

Past studies have documented some pre-service teachers' (PSTs) difficulties in reasoning about sampling variability. This study adds to the body of literature by investigating the ideas that PSTs employ in reasoning about sampling variability, and by conjecturing what is behind the difficulties especially during the contextuality episodes. This…

Obtaining adequate understanding of scientific concepts is considered challenging due to learners' misconceptions about natural phenomena. Misconceptions may coexist with scientific knowledge in the brain. Therefore, misconceptions must be cognitively inhibited in order to select the scientific knowledge. There is, however, lack of substantial…

Neuromyths have been discussed to detrimentally affect educational practice, but the evidence for this assumption is still very scarce. We investigated whether 255 student-teacher' beliefs in neuromyths are related to their academic achievement (overall grade point averages and first-year practical courses). Believing or rejecting neuromyths that…