Three-year-olds often respond to lies as if they were true or with no clear rationale. Individual differences influence children's processing of misinformation. Here, we explore how two contextual cues (children's conflicting first-hand knowledge and different information sources) affect their ability to correctly interpret and respond to…

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…

In a pandemic era, it is necessary to equip individuals with the ability to make informed decisions about health issues, especially in relation to viruses and vaccines. In order to achieve this goal, science educators need to explore students' decisions and reasoning about vaccination. The aim of the study reported in the paper, therefore, is to…

Objectives: Climate change is a vital environmental issue that every citizen in the world needs to be concerned about. Individually and collectively, regionally and globally, citizens should make informed decisions to overcome the climate crisis. However, in recent years, people are exposed to climate-related misinformation, disinformation, and…

Developments in information and communication technologies (ICTs) add urgency to the claim that democracy requires media literate citizens. The purpose of this paper is to support media engagement by youth in a context characterized by the spread of misinformation through the very technologies that promise to democratize public debate. Rejecting…

There has never been a more pressing need for students to learn how to evaluate scientific information online than during the COVID-19 outbreak. Information, misinformation, and disinformation spread quickly across online news and social media platforms. This misleading or incorrect scientific information about infectious diseases could lead to…

One of the central challenges educators face today, especially in higher education, is the gap between warranted (domain-specific) knowledge and the prior beliefs students hold about certain concepts and phenomena (preconceptions). In the Internet age, students often self-directedly acquire knowledge from an increasingly large number of…

This proceedings contains the texts of 5 invited papers and 28 refereed papers. The following are among the papers included: "Consumer Interest in the 1990's and Beyond" (Turner); "Esther Peterson and the Consumer Movement" (Galbraith); "The Public's Right to Government Information" (English); "Partnerships in…