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AGE, GENERATIONAL AND EDUCATIONAL EFFECTS ON U.S. ADULT PSEUDOSCIENCE SUPPORT

AGE, GENERATIONAL AND EDUCATIONAL EFFECTS ON U.S. ADULT PSEUDOSCIENCE SUPPORT. Susan Carol Losh, PhD Educational Psychology and Learning Systems Florida State University Tallahassee FL 32306-4453. Thanks to Gary B. Trudeau and the Doonesbury strip of January 14 2007

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AGE, GENERATIONAL AND EDUCATIONAL EFFECTS ON U.S. ADULT PSEUDOSCIENCE SUPPORT

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  1. AGE, GENERATIONAL AND EDUCATIONAL EFFECTS ON U.S. ADULT PSEUDOSCIENCE SUPPORT Susan Carol Losh,PhD EducationalPsychology and LearningSystems FloridaStateUniversity TallahasseeFL32306-4453

  2. Thanks to Gary B. Trudeau and the Doonesbury strip of January 14 2007 for the following oh-so appropriate cartoon:

  3. HERE’S HOW YOU CAN CONTACT ME: Susan Carol Losh Associate Professor of Educational Psychology & Learning Systems Learning and Cognition Program Florida State University Tallahassee, FL USA 32306-4453 slosh@garnet.acns.fsu.edu Voice (850) 644-8778 Fax (850) 644-8776 Leave a voice message OR contact the Educational Psychology Department at: (850) 644-4592

  4. SUPPORT FROM & THANKS TO • An American Educational Research Association Grant for 2005-2007 to Susan Carol Losh. • Grant 0532943from the National Science Foundation for 2006-2007 to Susan Carol Losh. Of course, analyses, interpretations and views are my own and do not necessarily reflect those of the NSF or AERA. Thanks to “the gang”: Ryan Wilke, Michael Quinn, Margareta Pop, Feng Zhou, Ying Gao, Connie Guan, and also to Ray Eve, Alice Robbin, and Martin Bauer.

  5. Why study Public Understanding of Science generally in the American Adult Population? • Understanding science processes enhances evaluating data from school, work, friends, and media. • Science literacy affects people’s informed choices on schools, health, municipal, and national policy (think fluoride! GM foods! witches! evolution!) • Input from adults into the school system and culture to educate the next generation. • Those with more accurate information rely less on self- styled “experts” and are more able to assess expertise.

  6. Those with a solid science factual vocabulary who understand inquiry processes may: • Partly defuse pure political influence on policy • In a democratic society, science funding depends on public support. • And, in the process, we may just learn more about social factors in how people reason.

  7. How about Pseudoscience? • Much maligned as a research topic, it’s Important to study. • Pseudoscience beliefs cost people in time, money, and health. • Pseudoscience peddlers compete for cultural authority, legitimacy, consumer dollars. • “Back door” scaffold re: how people reason, what evidence they find compelling.

  8. Civic Science Literacy (CSL) in theAdult General Public Jon D. Miller definition (2000): “a level of understanding of scientific terms and constructs sufficient to read a daily paper or magazine and to understand the essence of competing arguments on a given dispute or controversy.” This encompasses both fact (earth is the third planet from the sun) and understanding how scientists cumulate knowledge, e.g., inquiry processes. There isn’t much research on factual knowledge among adults and very little on understanding inquiry.

  9. Pseudoscience • cognitions about material phenomena claiming to be ‘science,’ yet use non-scientific evidentiary processes (Losh, et al., 2003). • Not necessary a “deficit”—may reflect heuristics and other perception processes. • Uses “agenda scholarship”, anecdote (e.g., ersatz “cures”), authoritative assertion (e.g., scripture); compelling stories (alien abduction,) or unelaborated “natural” causes (planet positions).

  10. How have things changed? • We can’t just look at “gross change” over time. • Other variables have also changed. • Educational variables. • How science is taught. • Age distributions. • Changes in forms of religiosity.

  11. CHANGES IN SCIENCE EDUCATION • Considerable complaint from college faculty and government re science education decline (Congressional hearings,2006). • Difficulty filling K-12 STEM positions. • Yet many changes have occurred in K-12 science education over past 30 years in theory and at least the past 10 in fact. • More emphasis on inquiry, hands-on, context. • Effects on K-12 students are mixed but • Expect trickle through to younger generations, especially on understanding inquiry. • No knowledge of cohort effects on US adults. • This study continues to fill some of these gaps.

  12. AGE VS. COHORT • Age treatment in adult CSL is cavalier. • Treated as control variable, not scrutinized. • Conceptually age can be proxy for memory decay. • Factual knowledge, especially, recedes as school fades into the past. • However, cohort could tap changes in teaching K-12 science. • More recent generations more exposed to inquiry. • We would not expect inquiry understanding to fade over time: it’s how, not a “what”

  13. AGE, PERIOD & COHORT ANALYSES • In a single time period, age and cohort effects confounded; cannot disentangle • Logical and statistical identification problem • Linear dependence of third on first two • No logical way out (analytic attempts abound) • One possibility is to use proxies: What does age mean or stand for (e.g., memory decay in this study)? What does period or cohort stand for? • Because of conceptualization, this study focuses on joint age and cohort only. Time implicitly understood as cohorts age.

  14. WHAT ELSE CHANGES BY COHORT? • Longevity: 20th century longevity lengthens • Educational level: adolescents remain in school longer • As a result, high school students have more exposure to math and science • As a result, youth more likely to attend college and university • Thus, more exposure to college science over time, too All these factors should be controlled to see net effects of age and cohort

  15. THE DATAThe NSF Surveys of Public Understanding of Science and Technology 1979-2001 • 11 nationally representative USA surveys: 1979, 1981, 1983, 1985, 1988, 1990, 1992, 1995, 1997, 1999, 2001. • 22,000 interviews total of non-institutionalized adults. 1979 in-person; later Random Digit Dial, lower 48 states. Universal telephone coverage begins 1997. Prior to that coverage exceeds 90%.

  16. ISSUES AND CONCERNS WITH THE DATA • Question content and thoroughness vary by time • Discontinuities in coding (e.g., detailed occupation or major educational field) over time. • Discontinuities in item content over time. • Important conceptual variables absent or inconsistent over time (religion, religiosity, self-efficacy). • Collected by different agencies. • Question wording varies too. BUT: HOWEVER YOU EXAMINE IT,IT’S A NATIONAL TREASURE

  17. MEASURES OF CSL (2006) • “Oxford questions”: 10 items measuring basic factual knowledge. Varied formats; reversals on true-false items. Total additive index 0-10 correct. • 4 questions on basic applied probability. Genetic illness inheritance vignette. Total index 0-4 correct. • One item on testing a new blood pressure drug: better to give to all 1000 participants or split 50-50 active drug versus not. Sets 2 and 3 are considered more inquiry than factual items.

  18. PSEUDOSCIENCE MEASURES (2007) • Whether ASTROLOGY is very, somewhat or not scientific • Whether some numbers are LUCKY for some people • Whether humans “developed” from earlier species of animals • Whether some UFOs are spacecraft from “other civilizations”

  19. EDUCATION VARIABLES • Degree level • Highest level high school math course • High school exposure to biology, chemistry, physics • Number of high school math courses • Number of college science courses AGE GROUP • 5 age groups: 18-24 • 25-34 • 35-44 • 45-64 • 65 years or more INERRANT RELIGIOSITY PROXY • We depend too much on science, not enough on faith

  20. BIRTH COHORT • World War I: 1891-1917 • Post World War I: 1918-1929 • Depression-World War II: 1930-1945 • Baby Boomers: 1946-1961* • “Gen X”: 1962-1978 • “Gen Y”: 1979-1983** *Absolute number of births peaks **More years to be added as new surveys integrated into the archive

  21. ANALYSES • N-way ANOVA with covariates • Test for age-cohort interaction (none) • Multiple classification analyses to produce adjusted simple effects (MCA) • Eta2 for educational variables, gender, age group, basic science knowledge, inerrant proxy & cohort

  22. SOME ANALYTIC EXAMPLES (EXCEL CHARTS) Figure 1 adapted from Losh, et al., 2003, Skeptical Inquirer

  23. As you can see, change by age and cohort looks quite different from gross changes over time • And ADJUSTED cohort effects look quite different from those that are unadjusted • But once calculated, adjusted and plotted, it is clear that we must consider cohort or generation when we discuss facets of public understanding of science.

  24. RESULTS • More recent USA cohorts have more education— 14% oldest cohort have at least a 2 year degree; 32% “Gen X” do • More recent cohorts much more likely to have had high school course in biology, chemistry or physics • More recent cohorts have taken more high school science courses • More recent cohorts have taken higher levels of high school math • More recent cohorts have more exposure to college science

  25. However, cohort has effects on PUS NET of educational variables • More recent cohorts have higher Oxford scores, typically higher probability level scores, and more correct answers to the experimental drug question • For knowledge measures, cohort is more important than age • Cohort largest effects on science inquiry items • Cohort affects pseudoscience too, but not in the same optimistic way! • Exempting evolution, more recent cohorts often seem MORE accepting of pseudoscience, not less • High school science exposure remains important for US adult CSL, net of college experiences

  26. CONCLUSIONS • Age is being confounded with generation in nearly all studies of US adult PUS • Cohort appears very important in these PUS analyses, age is more important in predicting pseudoscience beliefs than conventional CSL • Cohort and age have effects over and above educational experience and the “on faith” proxy • No evidence “science education is getting worse” in USA high schools—quite the contrary • High school important controlling degree level and number of college science courses

  27. LIMITATIONS • I’d like to say it’s changes in how we teach high school science that fuel the effects of birth cohort on science knowledge—but I can’t directly • We know what and how many high school courses adults took but not how courses were taught • “Gen Y” in some cases most knowledgeable but in 2001 had not completed their educations • Perhaps exposure to media, especially the Internet, affected younger cohorts • We seem to have left “teaching” pseudoscience to the media with, I think, fairly disastrous effects

  28. IMPLICATIONS • US high schools probably doing better job, not worse • Many scholars believe we should extend inclusive, inquiry-oriented, hands-on, contextual approach to college science • More questions on science inquiry will also be useful • 2003 JPSM borrows from NAEP • 2006 should be available shortly • Gains threatened by US “high stakes” multiple choice testing--easier to compose closed questions on factual items than inquiry items • And a revolution in teaching USA secondary school science thus may be “swept away”

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