> there's really no way to know how effective it is in reducing ones propensity to be "misinformed" (by whatever measure)
It seems straightforward to research it.
Most regular English classes have a very similar curriculum and almost certainly any English teacher on the high school level will say part of their learning objectives for their students is to improve critical thinking skills.
> It seems straightforward to research it.
How would you? Seems very difficult to me.
If the question is "How effective is a course in reducing ones propensity to be "misinformed"?" then that's a pretty basic (and cheap) experimental psychology study.
Set up a control group (diverse, large enough) that goes through a traditional curriculum. No added class.
Set up a test group (diverse, matched, large enough) that adds the additional class.
Afterwards, present both groups with a battery of defensible and indefensible information, with and without source identification.
See what the statistics say.
Some psychology is hard or impossible to study, but this is relatively straightforward.
What’s something objectively indefensible that would require a course on misinformation to identify?
I also don’t really see how you can setup a control group - either this class is required in which case a control is not possible, or you introduce the massive selection bias.
The best way would be to assign people to taking this class, which I suppose could be straightforward. I sincerely doubt there would be any effect once you control for grades in something like English.
Off the top of my head?
- Susie says the sky is blue. The sky is blue, because Susie says so.
- Frank says climate change is real. Frank is a convicted pedophile. Therefore, climate change is not real.
- Among all animals, only man is rational. Women are not men. Therefore, women are not rational.
- All humans are alive, therefore life begins at conception.
- Hacker News is the best source of informed commentary, because informed commenters comment on Hacker News.
And I've seen real world analogs of all of those on cable news shows.
> massive selection bias
This is something that experimental psychology has been solving for about 100 years. They're not bad at it.
You don't have a yearning to be part of a tribe, unless you feel like you're missing one.
cue histrionics
The fact is there's selection bias in people who even take these types of classes, and there's really no way to know how effective it is in reducing ones propensity to be "misinformed" (by whatever measure).