Beliefs About Justification for Knowing and the Selection and Processing of Multiple Documents: An Intervention

• In Event: Multiple Document Reading and Writing

Abstract

This study investigated the effects of a refutation text intervention on participants’ beliefs about justification for knowing and their subsequent performance on a multiple document task. Participants were assigned to one of three conditions in which they read a refutation text that promoted beliefs in personal justification, justification by authority, or justification by multiple sources. Participants’ beliefs were strongly influenced by the intervention. Beyond effects on justification beliefs, there were effects on participants’ selection of documents varying in terms of the expertise of the author and the stance toward the issue discussed across documents, as well as effects on how participants processed the selected documents. Effects of the intervention thus transferred to various stages of the multiple document task.

Authors

• Ivar Braten, University of Oslo
  Presenting Author

• Christian Brandmo, University of Oslo
  Non-Presenting Author

• Leila Eve Ferguson, Høyskolen Kristiania
  Non-Presenting Author

• Helge I. Stromso, University of Oslo
  Non-Presenting Author