Normal science and the paranormal: The effect of a scientific method course on students' beliefs

Morier, Dean; Keeports, David

doi:10.1007/bf02496382

Cited by 23 publications

(31 citation statements)

References 8 publications

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“…However, only paranormal beliefs were differentially influenced by the type of class, such that students in the experimental course showed a significantly greater reduction in paranormal beliefs. These results are consistent with studies showing that courses in science and pseudoscience can lead to a significant decrease in paranormal beliefs (e.g., Banziger, 1983;McBurney, 1996;Morier & Keeports, 1994;Swords, 1990). Students in the experimental course also showed slightly greater improvement in critical thinking in psychology than students in the comparison course, but this difference was not statistically significant, possibly due to limited statistical power.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 91%

Changes in Critical Thinking Skills following a Course on Science and Pseudoscience: A Quasi-Experimental Study

McLean

Miller

2010

Teaching of Psychology

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We assessed changes in paranormal beliefs and general critical thinking skills among students (n = 23) enrolled in an experimental course designed to teach distinguishing science from pseudoscience and a comparison group of students (n = 30) in an advanced research methods course. On average, both courses were successful in reducing paranormal beliefs and increasing both abstract and psychology-specific critical thinking skills. However, the only difference that emerged between the courses was that the experimental course was superior with regard to reducing specific paranormal beliefs.

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 91%

Changes in Critical Thinking Skills following a Course on Science and Pseudoscience: A Quasi-Experimental Study

McLean

Miller

2010

Teaching of Psychology

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“…Others have determined that with a focus on the demarcation of science from pseudoscience, a significant reduction in paranormal beliefs can occur (Morier and Keeports 1994) and an improvement in one's competence in evaluating flaws in reasoning (Wesp and Montgomery 1998) can be achieved. But, it must be noted that the concept of pseudoscience should be used carefully and distinguished from religious and other kinds of metaphysical claims, in order to not alienate students who may be deeply religious (Lilienfeld 2004).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 98%

The Context of Demarcation in Nature of Science Teaching: The Case of Astrology

Turgut

2010

Sci & Educ

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The aim of developing students' understanding of the nature of science [NOS] has been considered an important aspect of science education. However, the results of previous research indicate that students of various ages and even teachers possess both inaccurate and inappropriate views of the NOS. Such a failure has been explained by the view that perceptions about the NOS are well assimilated into mental structures and resistant to change. Further, the popularization of pseudoscience by the media and the assimilation of pseudoscience into previously established scientific fields have been presented as possible reasons for erroneous popular perceptions of science. Any teaching intervention designed to teach the NOS should first provoke individuals to expose their current ideas in order to provide them the chance to revise or replace these conceptual frameworks. Based on these assumptions, the aim of this study was to determine whether a teaching context based on the issue of demarcation would provide a suitable opportunity for exposing and further developing the NOS understandings of individuals enrolled in a teacher education course. Results indicate that a learning intervention based on the issue of demarcation of science from pseudoscience (in the specific case of astrology) proved an effective instructional strategy, which a majority of teacher candidates claimed to plan to use in their future teachings.

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“…This is in some sense analogous to teaching people about the logic of experimentation in science, in which experimental and control groups are meticulously designed to assess the influence of the factor that is being tested, independent of any other confounding variables. Although this idea underlies many scientific educational programs [43], [44], [45], we know of no program that has tested the efficacy of this training in reducing subsequent causal illusions. Based on this idea, the goal of the present study was to develop and test an educational intervention that would reduce the tendency to illusory perceptions of causality by encouraging people to understand the importance of exposing themselves to more cause-absent control observations.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Implementation and Assessment of an Intervention to Debias Adolescents against Causal Illusions

et al. 2013

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Researchers have warned that causal illusions are at the root of many superstitious beliefs and fuel many people’s faith in pseudoscience, thus generating significant suffering in modern society. Therefore, it is critical that we understand the mechanisms by which these illusions develop and persist. A vast amount of research in psychology has investigated these mechanisms, but little work has been done on the extent to which it is possible to debias individuals against causal illusions. We present an intervention in which a sample of adolescents was introduced to the concept of experimental control, focusing on the need to consider the base rate of the outcome variable in order to determine if a causal relationship exists. The effectiveness of the intervention was measured using a standard contingency learning task that involved fake medicines that typically produce causal illusions. Half of the participants performed the contingency learning task before participating in the educational intervention (the control group), and the other half performed the task after they had completed the intervention (the experimental group). The participants in the experimental group made more realistic causal judgments than did those in the control group, which served as a baseline. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first evidence-based educational intervention that could be easily implemented to reduce causal illusions and the many problems associated with them, such as superstitions and belief in pseudoscience.

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Normal science and the paranormal: The effect of a scientific method course on students' beliefs

Cited by 23 publications

References 8 publications

Changes in Critical Thinking Skills following a Course on Science and Pseudoscience: A Quasi-Experimental Study

Changes in Critical Thinking Skills following a Course on Science and Pseudoscience: A Quasi-Experimental Study

The Context of Demarcation in Nature of Science Teaching: The Case of Astrology

Implementation and Assessment of an Intervention to Debias Adolescents against Causal Illusions

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