Epistemic processing of multiple science texts on the Internet

中等教育的学生、大学生和想要了解更多关于科学主题的非专业人士通常会阅读来自不同来源和不同质量的多个文本（例如，维基百科条目、在线媒体、科学期刊、科学家网页或科学博客）。这些文本往往传达相互矛盾的信息，例如，当文本在科学争议中代表对立的立场时。本研究旨在探讨学习者如何理解与科学相关的文本中的冲突信息，并构建有争议的科学问题的心理表征。该项目的第一阶段致力于开发和测试一个理论模型，该模型区分了如何从认识上处理来自多个科学相关文本的冲突信息的肤浅和详细的方式。该模型允许预测的影响，情境和学习者为基础的条件下的认知过程和由此产生的心理表征在非正式学习与多个文本。到目前为止，这些预测在九个连续的实验中得到了验证。浅加工似乎会导致偏向于学习者初始信念的片面心理表征，而精细认知加工则使学习者能够对科学争议构建一个平衡而丰富的心理表征。即将到来的项目阶段的拟议研究集中在（1）科学争议的有动机的认识处理的特征，（2）澄清认识监测在学习相互冲突的信息中的因果作用，以及（2）开发有效但经济的干预措施，以促进对有争议的科学问题的多文本学习。为此，提出了四个综合实验，这是基于不同的实验范式和方法（其中包括，在阅读，反应时间实验和训练实验的眼动跟踪）。

Students in secondary education, university students, and lay persons who want to learn more about a scientific topic usually read multiple texts from different sources and of varying quality (for example, Wikipedia entries, online media, scientific journals, scientists' web pages, or science blogs). More often than not these texts communicate conflicting information, for example when the texts represent opposing stances in a scientific controversy. This research project investigates how learners comprehend conflicting information in science-related texts and construct mental representations of controversial scientific issues. The first phase of the project was devoted to developing and testing a theoretical model which distinguishes a shallow and an elaborative way of how conflicting information from multiple science-related texts is processed epistemically. This model allows predictions concerning effects of situational and learner-based conditions on cognitive processes and the resulting mental representations in informal learning with multiple texts. So far, these predictions were tested in nine consecutive experiments. Whereas shallow processing seems to cause a one-sided mental representation which is biased towards learners' initial beliefs, elaborative epistemic processing enables learners to construct a balanced and rich mental representation of sicentific controversies. The proposed research for the upcoming project phase concentrates on (1) characteristics of a motivated epistemic processing of scientific controversies, (2) a clarification of the causal role of epistemic monitoring in learning with conflicting information, and (2) the development of effective but economical interventions to foster learning with multiple texts on controversial scientific issues. To this end, four comprehensive experiments are proposed, which are based on different experimental paradigms and methods (among others, eye tracking during reading, reaction time experiments, and training experiments).