Individuals rely on accurate information to make important decisions, but in the current environment the vast amount of misinformation present in society is complicating people's thinking. Many people fall prey to a cognitive bias called the continued influence effect, which occurs when they continue to use misinformation even when they have seen…

This dissertation explored how effectively first-year writing (FYW) evaluated and selected sources for their researched writing assignments. Though students were taught how to access sources from the library and offered sources on the course management system, most often they obtained sources via the open internet. As mis- and disinformation…

While online information is abundant and easily accessible, its quality varies widely. Fact-checkers evaluate online information by reading laterally, i.e., opening a new browser tab to research sources and verify claims. This dissertation consisted of three studies that used course outcomes assessment data to examine the impact of a lateral…

In this research, social media data from a public school district was utilized to help improve district communication during and after a crisis. Data was analyzed by utilizing the programming languages R and Python. The programming languages helped generate data that allowed this research to evaluate how the quality of crisis communication could…

This dissertation describes the overall effectiveness of deception detection training and identifies conditions that may enhance training effectiveness through understanding how adults learn and utilizing scenario-based training. The analysis was based on a total of 1,788 evaluation data sheets (archival records). The major aim of the research is…