ŠTĚPÁNEK, Jan, Tomáš ONDRÁČEK, Michal STRÁNSKÝ, Iva SVAČINOVÁ and Paweł ŁUPKOWSKI. Impact of Teaching on Acceptance of Pseudo-Scientific Claims. In The International Congress of Logic, Methodology and Philosophy of Science and Technology, 5–10 August 2019, Prague. 2019.
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Basic information
Original name Impact of Teaching on Acceptance of Pseudo-Scientific Claims
Authors ŠTĚPÁNEK, Jan (203 Czech Republic, guarantor, belonging to the institution), Tomáš ONDRÁČEK (203 Czech Republic, belonging to the institution), Michal STRÁNSKÝ (203 Czech Republic), Iva SVAČINOVÁ (203 Czech Republic) and Paweł ŁUPKOWSKI (616 Poland).
Edition The International Congress of Logic, Methodology and Philosophy of Science and Technology, 5–10 August 2019, Prague, 2019.
Other information
Original language English
Type of outcome Presentations at conferences
Field of Study 60301 Philosophy, History and Philosophy of science and technology
Country of publisher Czech Republic
Confidentiality degree is not subject to a state or trade secret
WWW Abstrakt
RIV identification code RIV/00216224:14210/19:00111327
Organization unit Faculty of Arts
Keywords (in Czech) kritické myšlení; pseudověda; výuka; studenti
Keywords in English critical thinking; pseudo-science; teaching; students
Tags rivok
Tags International impact
Changed by Changed by: Mgr. Zuzana Matulíková, učo 405304. Changed: 10/3/2020 14:48.
Abstract
Can teaching have any impact on students' willingness to embrace pseudo-scientific claims? And if so, will this impact be significant. This paper aims to present an ongoing research conducted in two countries and four universities which aims to answer these questions. The research is based on a previous work McLaughlin & McGill (2017). They conducted a study among university students which seems to show that teaching critical thinking can have a statistically significant impact on the acceptance of pseudo-scientific claims by students. They compared a group of students that attended a course on critical thinking and pseudo-scientific theories with a control group of students who attended a course on a general philosophy of science using the same questionnaire containing the pseudo-scientific claims. The questionnaire was administered at the onset of the semester (along with a Pew Research Center Science Knowledge Quiz), and then at the end of the semester. While there was no significant change in a degree of belief in pseudo-scientific claims in the control group, the experimental group showed a statistically significant decrease in belief in pseudo-scientific claims. In the first phase of our research, we conducted a study similar to that of McLaughlin & McGill, though we were not able to replicate their results. There was no significant change in belief in pseudo-scientific claims among the study's participants. This, in our opinion, is due to the imperfections and flaws in both our and McLaughlin & McGills studies. In this paper, we would like to present our research along with the results obtained during its first phase. We will also discuss the shortcomings and limitations of our research and the research it is based on. Finally, we would like to present and discuss future plans for the next phase of our research into the teaching of critical thinking and its transgression of critical thinking in cases focusing on humanities and science. McLaughlin, A.C. & McGill, A.E. (2017): Explicitly Teaching Critical Thinking Skills in a History Course. Science & Education 26(1–2), 93–105. Adam, A. & Manson, T. (2014): Using a Pseudoscience Activity to Teach Critical Thinking. Teaching of Psychology 41(2), 130–134. Tobacyk, J. (2004): A revised paranormal belief scale. International Journal of Transpersonal Studies 23, 94–98.
Links
MUNI/A/0945/2018, interní kód MUName: Aspekty soudobé filozofie I. (Acronym: Krob)
Investor: Masaryk University, Category A
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