Skeptical Thinking in the Classroom and its Impact - School of Arts ...

Student 11 had one of the best analysis of the Hope Diamond, but scored lowest in the
horoscope and low in the ghost activity.
Student 2a scored the highest in the Hope Diamond and the Horoscope activities, but
scored negatively in the Ghost activity.
These examples show that skepticism is not a monolithic way of thinking, but changes
from person to person and topic to topic. It seems as though there are many factors that
go into an individual’s critical thinking process. Some of the factors that were revealed
by the student responses were:
1) Religion: Religious beliefs that are instilled from birth or a very young age have a
profound effect on the way a student will analyze data. Many students misinterpret,
ignore, or disbelieve contradictory evidence.
a) Misinterpretation
i) Innocent Misinterpretation: Students that are guilty of misinterpretation may
be new to logical investigation and may just need to sharpen their data
analysis skills
ii) Biased misinterpretation: Students that are guilty of biased misinterpretation
have an idea of what they believe the data should be and make the data fit
their invalid interpretation.
b) Ignoring evidence: Students that are guilty of ignoring evidence will put forth
their invalid view without addressing the factual contradictory evidence.
c) Disbelieving contradictory evidence: Students guilty of disbelieving
contradictory evidence cling to their invalid views and believe that the scientific
data is wrong or made up to discredit a point of view.
2) Mass media/Popular Culture:
a) Many of the students, in the ghost activity in particular, say their invalid
assessment of the data presented was fueled by television programs such as Ghost
Hunters on the Sci-Fi channel. These programs hook people with a flashy
presentation, charismatic performers, scientific sounding language, and scientific
sounding equipment. The main problem with the programs is that they do not
faithfully follow the scientific method or the principle of Occam’s razor when
evaluating their so called data.
3) Personal experience:
a) Friends or family’s anecdotal stories of a paranormal experience. Many students
related experiences that family members had with ghosts, fortune tellers, curses,
psychics, and astrology. The students were more likely to believe an impassioned
sincere story from a friend or relative than anything presented by an article or
teacher. Most of these stories came out during class discussions. The way the
students told the stories were very impassioned and sincere. Most of the
discussions regarding a story like that ended with the student saying something to
the effect of: “I don’t care what you say, I believe my Aunt” or “Science can’t
prove that it didn’t happen”
b) Student personal experience: The majority of these stories came out during the
discussions as well. The few students that claim to have experienced an event
related that their experience was very convincing and it would take a lot to
convince them otherwise.