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.
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.