In this article, we develop the revised and short versions of the pseudoscientific belief scale through two empirical studies (N = 4154). This revision is motivated by the excessive length of the scale, as well as by consistent observations of poor item loadings across several studies. Exploratory factor analysis in Study 1 revealed 11 dispensable…

We used mixed methods to identify middle school students' conceptions and misconceptions of energy in the domain of health and fitness. We selected a total of 24 middle schools from six school districts in a Southeastern state of the U. S. through stratified sampling. Students were first given a standardized knowledge test to establish their…

Science denial has a long history of causing harm in contemporary society when ignored. Recent discussions of science denial suggest that correcting people's false beliefs rarely has an impact on eliminating the adherence to false beliefs and assumptions, which is called the backfire effect. This paper brings the backfire effect within the context…

This paper considers characteristic views advanced in the past fifteen years that may be considered relatively sympathetic to student practices of cheating on graded assignments or exams. We detect and analyze typical fallacies that are recurrent in articles that promote a revisionist view of cheating as morally permissible. We offer a general,…

College students lack fact-checking skills, which may lead them to accept information at face value. We report findings from an institution participating in the Digital Polarization Initiative (DPI), a national effort to teach students lateral reading strategies used by expert fact-checkers to verify online information. Lateral reading requires…

Since the No Child Left Behind Act (No Child Left Behind [NCLB], 2001) was enacted, the Bookmark method has been used in many state standard setting studies (Karantonis and Sireci; Zieky, Perie, and Livingston). The purpose of the current study is to evaluate the criticism that when panelists are presented with data during the Bookmark standard…

Bias and prejudice are well known aspects of all societies and political arenas. They motivate a wide variety of fear-mongering policies and seem to be deeply ingrained in the hearts and minds of people, interfering with their reasoning and better judgement. In this paper, I explore how bias and prejudice come about and how they can be put to more…

This paper presents two studies that explored community attitudes to autism in Australia; and autistic people and their families' perspectives of community attitudes. In Study One 2424 (primarily non-autistic) people completed a survey on autism-related knowledge and attitudes; identifying a number of misperceptions and knowledge gaps in the…

This study has two aims. The first one is to reveal the science teacher candidates' misconceptions about the density by using a four-tier diagnostic test, and the second one is to determine to what extent science teacher candidates have scientific knowledge, lack of knowledge, and misconceptions about the density. In order to achieve these aims, a…

This article questions the centrality of knowledge and learning in the curriculum, as well as the restriction of education to learning even when education is thought of as consisting of ways to combat anti-science discourses in the name of combating COVID-19. Based on discourse theory and deconstruction, with a focus on the notions of radical…

Despite a national decline in teenage pregnancy rates, Arkansas continues to have one of the highest rates in the USA. More teenagers in the state reported not using any method of contraception (20%) compared to the USA (13.8%). National-level research suggests that misinformation and lack of awareness about contraception is prevalent. This study…

As "research it yourself" becomes a rallying cry for promoters of outlandish conspiracy theories with real-world consequences, educators need to think hard about what's missing from their information literacy efforts. Setting aside the fact that the people most likely to share misinformation haven't been in a classroom for decades, most…

The learning style myth is a commonly held myth that matching instruction to a student's "learning style" will result in improved learning, while providing mismatched instruction will result in suboptimal learning. The present study used a short online reasoning exercise about the efficacy of multimodal instruction to investigate the…

The learning style myth is a commonly held myth that matching instruction to a student's "learning style" will result in improved learning, while providing mismatched instruction will result in suboptimal learning. The present study used a short online reasoning exercise about the efficacy of multimodal instruction to investigate the…

Humane Acts Bystander Intervention Training curriculum (HABIT) aims to reach students less inclined to learn from liberal and more-feminist education offered in current curricula. Using moral foundations theory to encourage bystander intervention in potential sexual assault situations, the authors taught and assessed 137 diverse students within an…