Providing Undergraduates with Opportunities to Explicitly Reflect on How News Articles Promote the Public (Mis)understan
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Providing Undergraduates with Opportunities to Explicitly Reflect on How News Articles Promote the Public (Mis)understanding of Science Pablo Antonio Archila 1 & Jorge Molina 2 & Giovanna Danies 3 & Anne-Marie Truscott de Mejía 4 & Silvia Restrepo 1 Accepted: 29 October 2020/ # Springer Nature B.V. 2020
Abstract
A well-informed populace is vitally important for the proper functioning of democracy. Media news articles constitute an essential means by which the public comes into contact with scientific issues. However, not all of the scientific information presented in news articles is trustworthy or accurate. Naturally, the situation becomes more complicated because most university science departments spend little empirical effort considering how to foster undergraduates’ scientific media literacy (SML). This article discusses the effect of a teaching-learning sequence (TLS) in (1) providing undergraduates with opportunities to explicitly reflect on the ways in which news articles promote the public (mis)understanding of science and (2) engaging them in argumentative classroom interactions (such as debates). It examines the written and oral arguments produced by 115 undergraduates (62 females and 53 males, 17–23 years old) in Colombia during a complete TLS supervised by the same instructor. The data used in this analysis were collected from students’ written responses and audio recordings. The findings suggest that the TLS can be a good start to show undergraduates some of the different ways in which news articles promote the public (mis)understanding of science and, thus, enrich their SML. The study contributes to the development of a research-based university science education that can inform the design of the SML curriculum for higher education.
1 Introduction Thier (2008) maintains that the media can expose people to intentional or unintentional false and/or inaccurate scientific information. It may be obvious to point out that this is a serious problem. Nevertheless, an even more serious problem is that citizens usually overestimate the certainty that can be attributed to scientific information communicated in the media (Archila et al. 2019; McClune and Jarman 2012). In relation to this point, Archila et al. (2019), Belova
* Pablo Antonio Archila [email protected] Extended author information available on the last page of the article
P. A. Archila et al.
and Eilks (2016), and Chang Rundgren and Rundgren (2014) have started to explicitly use the term “scientific media literacy” (SML)—abilities to engage critically with science in the media—which results from the articulation of scientific literacy with media literacy. In this article, “media” is defined as “the main ways that large numbers of people receive information and entertainment, that is television, radio, newspapers, and the Internet” (Oxford English Dictionary 2020). Personal websites, blogs, and tweaks are types of media; however, we only focus on media news articles here. Several academics consider the false or inaccurate scientific in
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