Views and Value of an Undergraduate General Education on Advancing Students’ Science Beliefs, Attitudes, and Engagement

Nicholas D. J. Strzalkowski and Mandana Sobhanzadeh
Mount Royal University, Canada

Copyright 2023 The Author(s). CC-BY-NC-ND License 4.0 This is an open access work distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License, which permits copy and redistribution with appropriate credit. This work cannot be used for commercial purposes and cannot be distributed if the original material is modified.

Abstract

Introduction

The internet has revolutionized our access to information, along with misinformation, pseudoscience, and conspiracy theories. Each day brings new scientific discoveries and technological advancements that impact the lives of undergraduate students and society in general. Despite an acceleration of scientific advancement, there is a decline in the public trust in science that has been described as the “post-truth” era (Compton et al., 2021; Lewandowsky et al., 2017). Science denialism, a belief that people can choose to accept a reality that is at odds with scientific consensus, is prevalent and can have serious consequences for individuals and communities (Levine, 2018; Peters & Besley, 2020). Science denialism is made worse by social media platforms that provide echo chambers in which scientific misinformation and conspiracy theories are amplified and spread (“Scientific Misinformation: A Perfect Storm, Missteps, and Moving Forward,” 2021). We are currently at an artificial intelligence (AI) turning point, where natural language models will make distinguishing human- from AI-written articles difficult if not impossible. In fact, we have reflected that this could be one of our last articles authored without the use of AI tools. Scientific literacy provides competencies for individuals to navigate and make decisions in our increasingly complex world (Vandegrift et al., 2020). These competencies are desirable for both individuals and for society as an important feature of functioning democracies (Miller, 1998; Snow & Dibner, 2016). Undergraduate education remains an effective way to enhance science literacy (Allum et al., 2008) and is often the last occasion when students receive formal science training. It is important that educators consider different elements of student science literacy in curriculum design and that universities promote science education within their programs. Here we explore the attitudes towards science, engagement with science, and pseudoscience beliefs of undergraduate students at a general/liberal education university.

There is no set definition for science literacy or agreement on a core set of knowledge and competencies a scientifically literate person should possess (Benjamin et al., 2017; DeBoer, 2000; Holbrook & Rannikmae, 2009; Meinwald & Hildebrand, 2010). We consider this openness to be more of a benefit than a concern, as it offers curricular flexibility as relevant science concepts change over time and differ between educators and individual learners. We agree with DeBoer (2000) who argued that science literacy should be defined broadly enough for educators to pursue goals and give examples most suitable for their particular situation. This advice remains relevant today and highlights a long-standing appreciation that science instructional goals will change with time. Science education should strive to instill in students a positive view about science, and the motivation, confidence, and interest to engage with scientific content outside of the classroom. This view aligns with others that emphasize the ability to appreciate and communicate science when considering science education (Holbrook & Rannikmae, 2009), and that science ability alone is insufficient to achieve deep understanding and learning (Vandegrift et al., 2020). Students’ beliefs about science as both a body of knowledge and way of knowing impact their motivation to learn and engagement in the classroom (Buehl & Alexander, 2005). Student motivation has been shown to correlate with their grades and the self-reported relevance of science concepts to their career goals (Glynn et al., 2009). As such, an important component of developing science literacy in the classroom is cultivating an interest in science topics and the motivation to engage with science concepts. Students’ interest and self-belief in science is particularly important in general education courses designed to empower a diverse student population with the capacity for scientific thinking (Vandegrift et al., 2020).

Undergraduate education is often the last occasion when students receive formal science training, which places the crucial responsibility of advancing individual and by extension societal science literacy on post-secondary education. Liberal education programs that are focused on providing students with a broad integrated interdisciplinary curriculum are well suited to advance science literacy (Meinwald & Hildebrand, 2010). However, how, and even if, broad science literacy can be effectively enhanced through undergraduate courses remains controversial (Cartwright et al., 2020; Ding et al., 2016; Lederman & Lederman, 2019). Ding et al. (2016) found that, regardless of program, scientific reasoning in a group of Chinese students did not change over four years of undergraduate education. In a Canadian context, practical science literacy assessed with the Test of Scientific Literacy Survey (TOSLS) (Gormally et al., 2012) did not increase during a fourth-year science course with specific science literacy activities. However, despite this lack of measurable gains in science literacy, students evaluated their perceived science literacy to have increased (Cartwright et al., 2020). Student confidence in their own science literacy is an important educational outcome; however, more work is needed to enhance teaching strategies that develop practical science literacy skills as well.

The ability to use scientific reasoning to make personal decisions or to use scientific knowledge to appreciate natural phenomena or cultural events more fully should not be limited to scientists or science students. It is important that general education science courses strive to offer value for all students, not just the minority who will become career scientists. Science anxiety can be high among students, even in general education courses aimed at nonscience majors (Udo et al., 2004). Core science courses can be particularly difficult for nonscience majors, who often do not see the relevance of science to their chosen career (Glynn et al., 2009). Together, high anxiety and difficulty with lack of perceived relevance can lead to poor motivation among nonscience students, which has been shown to lead to low achievement (Glynn et al., 2007). Understanding the scientific beliefs and misbeliefs of undergraduate students is key to enhancing the goals of general education. The value that general education science courses have in advancing student science literacy has motivated us to explore the science attitudes and engagement of undergraduate students at our institution.

Our institution takes a general education approach where each student takes up to 30% of their undergraduate courses in four thematic clusters to give them a well-rounded knowledge base. One of these clusters specifically focuses on numeracy and science literacy. All students must take one of two foundation courses on numeracy and science literacy with the majority (1,400 students Fall 2021 and 840 students Winter 2022) enrolling in a course called GNED 1101: Scientific and Mathematical Literacy for the Modern World. The authors of this paper are scientists and General Education instructors and teach GNED 1101. The objective of this project is to better understand our students’ attitudes towards science and engagement with science, as well as their pseudoscientific beliefs.

Pseudoscience concepts attempt to appear scientific while being incompatible with the scientific method. There are many examples of pseudoscience, and we investigated undergraduate student beliefs about four pseudoscience examples: astrology, numerology, psychic powers, and reflexology. We employed a mixed methods approach that included a custom science literacy questionnaire and follow-up semi-structured interviews. Student programs (science vs. nonscience) and level of study (junior: first and second year vs. senior: fourth year and higher) were groups of interest. We also investigated differences between students in GNED 1101 at the beginning (pre) and end (post) of the semester to see how science attitudes and engagement may be influenced by a single first-year science literacy course. We hypothesized that senior and science students will hold more positive views about science, engage more with science content outside of their courses, and hold fewer pseudoscientific beliefs compared with nonscience and junior students. We also hypothesized that students at the end (post) of a first-year general education science literacy course will also hold more favourable views about science, engage more with science content outside of their courses, and hold fewer pseudoscientific beliefs compared to students at the beginning of the same course (pre).

Methods

Approach and Participants

We employed a mixed methods study design that combined a custom online questionnaire (n = 272) with follow-up online one-on-one interviews (n = 8). Approximately 2,500 students were invited to participate through announcements posted to course websites. Junior undergraduate students, defined as being in the first or second year of their programs, were recruited from a first-year math and science foundation course (GNED 1101: Scientific and Mathematical Literacy for the Modern World). Senior students, defined as being in the fourth year of study or higher, were recruited from a selection of fourth-year courses taken from all programs across the university. GNED 1101 is a multi-section course. There were 35 sections in Fall 2021 and 21 sections in Winter 2022, when data collection took place. Each section has a maximum enrollment of 40 students. Half of the sections were given the questionnaire to complete within the first three weeks of the semester (pre group, n = 66) and half were given the questionnaire to complete in the final three weeks of the semester (post group, n = 67). Students in GNED 1101 who were also in their first or second year of study (13 pre or post participants were in their third year or higher) formed the junior group (n = 120) while students from the fourth-year courses in their fourth year or higher formed the senior group (n = 139). We did not use a cohort design, and students in the pre-post and junior-senior groups are unique. Students were also divided into science (n = 88) and nonscience (n = 182) groups based on their program of study. Participant groups are presented in Table 1. Follow-up interviews were conducted in the semesters following the questionnaires and included 5 senior (2 science, 3 nonscience) and 3 junior (1 science, 2 nonscience) participants. Interview participants have been given pseudonyms to preserve their anonymity. Participants gave informed written consent prior to starting both the questionnaire and interview. This study protocol was approved by our local human research ethics board (HREB ID #102305).

Table 1

Number of Participants Across Study Groups

Questionnaire

The questionnaire was created and administered using Qualtrics software (Qualtrics, Provo, Utah, USA). The full questionnaire was designed to be completed in less than 20 minutes and included additional questions beyond the scope of the current project. Students were informed of the time it would take to complete the questionnaire in the consent form that they had to sign prior to starting. The questionnaire with the questions relevant to the current study is provided in the appendix. Some questions are novel and were created for this project while others were adapted from previous studies (Benjamin et al., 2017; Gormally et al., 2012; Holden, 2012). The full questionnaire consisted of blocks of questions, which included personal characteristics (e.g., age, gender, year, and program of study) as well as questions regarding students’ self-assessed level of science literacy, their attitudes towards science and engagement with science, their foundational knowledge, and their understanding of the nature of science and science beliefs (i.e., pseudoscience beliefs, although the word pseudoscience was not used in the questionnaire). For senior students only, there were also two questions about how they believed that their science knowledge and interests had changed over their time as an undergraduate student. With the exception of personal characteristics, the questions were either five-point Likert scale or true-false. An open response question was provided to capture student feedback but was not used in the analysis. The current project focuses on the questions regarding self-assessed science literacy, attitudes and engagement, and pseudoscience beliefs, as well as the questions for senior students.

Interviews

Questionnaire participants were asked if they would be willing to participate in a follow-up interview. We contacted interested participants and completed 8 one-on-one 30-to-60 minute online semi-structured interviews using Google Meet with a Meet Transcription extension. We used a semi-structured approach, following pre-set questions to cover general themes while allowing flexibility to adjust the order and structure of questions based on participants’ responses. Interview questions covered five main topics: students’ general understanding of science literacy, their attitudes towards science, their beliefs in pseudoscience, their engagement with science, and their science literacy self-assessment.

Analysis

We used descriptive statistics (percentages) to analyze senior students’ science knowledge and interest questions, science attitudes and engagement, as well as pseudoscience belief questions. Differences in self-assessed science literacy and interest in learning science topics were compared pre-post and junior-senior using unpaired Mann-Whitney tests. Differences between pre-post science and nonscience students and junior-senior science and nonscience students were compared using a Kruskal-Wallis test. Significant main effects were examined with Dunn’s multiple comparisons tests. Statistically significant differences are assumed at P<0.05. All statistical analysis and results figures were generated using GraphPad Prism Version 9.

The qualitative data from the interviews were analyzed using the coding strategies presented by a grounded theory approach. Coding in grounded theory involves the twin practices of abstraction and generalization. Abstraction practice involves separating a whole into elements that are distinct from one another. These distinct elements shape their original context. Generalizing practice involves finding what is common or repeated among these elements (Corbin & Strauss, 2008; Packer, 2010). After coding the entire text, we made a list of all code words and grouped similar codes. We then identified the redundant codes to reduce the list of codes to a smaller, more manageable number.

Results

Self-Assessed Science Literacy

When students were asked to rate their self-assessed science literacy on a five-point scale of “Terrible, Poor, Fine, Good, or Excellent,” there were differences related to level of study and between science and nonscience majors (Figure 1). Self-assessed science literacy was significantly higher in students at the end (post) compared to beginning (pre) of a general education science literacy course (P=0.0001) (Figure 1A). Senior students self-assessed their science literacy as higher than junior students (P=0.0029) (Figure 1B). Pre nonscience majors self-assessed their level of science literacy significantly lower than post science (P=0.0009) and post nonscience (P=0.0013) students (Figure 1C). Senior science students had the highest self-assessed science literacy, which was significantly higher than both junior and senior nonscience students (P<0.0001) (Figure 1D). Overall, we found science majors self-assessed their science literacy more favourably (Good or Excellent) compared to nonscience majors (Science: 89%, Nonscience: 46%), and senior students self-assessed higher compared to junior students (Senior: 69%, Junior: 51%).

Figure 1

Self-Assessed Student Science Literacy from 1 “Terrible” to 5 “Excellent”

Click image to view full-size

Note. A) Self-assessed science literacy increased from pre to post (P=0.0001) and B) from junior to senior students (P=0.0029). C) Pre nonscience students self-assessed significantly lower than post science (P=0.0009) and post nonscience (P=0.0013) students. D) Junior and senior, science and nonscience majors. Senior science students self-assessed significantly higher than junior nonscience (P<0.0001) and senior nonscience (P<0.0001) students. Solid black lines indicate median values. Bold numbers represent the mean values.

Interest in Science

Overall interest in science was high, with 90% of students stating that they are “interested” or “extremely interested” in response to the question “How would you rate your interest in science and learning about scientific topics?” Responses were selected from a five-point scale, with 1 indicating “extremely uninterested” and 5 indicating “extremely interested.” Figure 2 presents self-reported interest in science. No differences were found between pre and post, and junior and senior students (P<0.05). Pre and post science students self-reported more interest in science than post nonscience students, and both junior and senior science students were significantly more interested in science than junior and senior nonscience students (P<0.05).

Figure 2

Percent of Senior Students Who Strongly Agree That Their Science Interest and Knowledge Have Improved During Their Degree

Note. Senior students were asked to choose from a five-point scale (1 “strongly disagree” to 5 "strongly agree”) in response to two statements: A) My interest in scientific topics and engagement with science (documentaries, news articles, podcasts, etc.) has increased during my time as a student at Mount Royal University. B) My knowledge about scientific topics and ability to think scientifically about issues in my everyday life have improved during my time as a student at Mount Royal University.

Science Attitudes

Table 2 presents the percentage of students who strongly agreed with four statements about the importance of science and science research funding. Overall senior science students had the most favourable views. The question about the use of tax dollars to fund basic science research was viewed the least favourably overall. For all questions, favourability was lower at the beginning (pre) compared to the end (post) of a first-year science literacy course (pre > post), which was most pronounced in nonscience students. The largest discrepancy between science and nonscience majors was found on the citizenship question. The percent of science students who strongly agreed that “being scientifically literate is an important part of responsible citizenship” was higher in the post compared to pre, and senior compared to junior groups. In contrast, pre and junior nonscience students held more favourable views about the importance of scientific literacy to responsible citizenship compared to post and senior students.

Table 2

Percentage of Pre-Post and Junior-Senior, Science and Nonscience Majors Who Strongly Agreed, on Five-Point Scale (1 “Strongly Disagree” to 5 “Strongly Agree”) With Four Statements About Their Attitudes About Science

Science Engagement

Student engagement with science was assessed by the percentage of students who report reading, watching, or listening to something on a scientific topic in the last month unrelated to a course requirement (Figure 3, Table 3). Small decreases in engagement are seen pre to post, with small increases in engagement seen junior to senior (Table 3). Pre students had higher rates of engagement than post students while overall senior students had higher rates of engagement than junior students. No meaningful differences are seen between science and nonscience students. Overall fewer students were engaging with science content by listening (e.g., podcast, audiobook, radio programs) compared to reading or watching.

Figure 3

Percentage of Students Who Said That They Had Either Read, Watched, or Listened to Something on a Scientific Topic Outside of a Course Requirement in the Last Month

Click image to view full-size

Note. A) Pre and post, science and nonscience students. B) Junior and senior, science and nonscience majors.

Table 3

Percentage of Pre-Post and Junior-Senior Science and Nonscience Students Who Read, Watched, or Listened to Something Scientific in the Last Month Unrelated to Course Content

The interview sessions revealed that many interviewees were motivated to learn more about science topics covered in the GNED 1101 course outside of class time. The interview data suggests that the GNED 1101 course improved students’ engagement, and we plan to further investigate the topics and classroom approaches that facilitated this motivation. Some statements mentioned by the interviewees about how GNED 1101 encouraged them to engage with science are presented in Table 4 below.

Table 4

Student Interview Quotes About Their Engagement With Science Outside of the Classroom

Pseudoscience Belief

Participants were asked if they believed in four different pseudosciences (astrology, numerology, psychic powers, and reflexology), and, as a follow-up question, they were asked how scientific they thought each of these topics are (not scientific, sort of scientific, very scientific, or not sure). The word pseudoscience did not appear on the questionnaire to avoid biasing responses. The percentage of participants who believed in at least one of the four pseudosciences is presented in Figure 4. Across all participant groups, the rates of belief in at least one of these four pseudosciences is over 50% and over 80% in pre students. Both science and nonscience students had higher rates of belief in pseudoscience at the beginning of GNED1101 compared to students at the end of the course. Senior science students had lower rates of belief in pseudoscience (67%) compared to junior science students (77%), but not lower than post nonscience students (59%). Of the four pseudosciences addressed, reflexology was the most likely to be believed with 56% of all participants saying they believed in reflexology and 65% agreeing that reflexology is “sort of” or “very scientific” (Table 5). Reflexology was also the least familiar, with 24% of participants indicating that they had never heard of reflexology before. In contrast, only 2 of 265 (0.8%) participants reported that they had never heard of astrology before, while fewer students reported believing in astrology (37%) compared to reflexology (56%).

Figure 4

Percentage of Students Who Believe in at Least one of Four Pseudosciences (Astrology, Numerology, Psychic Powers, Reflexology)

Click image to view full-size

Note. A) Pre and post, science and nonscience students. B) Junior and senior, science and nonscience majors.

Table 5

Percentage of Students Who Believe in Astrology, Numerology, Psychic Powers, and Reflexology, as well as the Percentage Who Think These Are Either Sort of Scientific or Very Scientific

The interviewees justified their beliefs in different ways. Four broad categories emerged for both science and nonscience students that help explain their pseudoscience beliefs: scientific terms, interest, personal experience, and authority.

Scientific Terms

The use of invented terms that sound “scientific” or real science terms applied incorrectly in pseudoscience are used to fool the audience, intentionally or unintentionally, into believing their ideas have scientific status. Some examples mentioned by the interviewees about why they believed in astrology are provided in Table 6.

Table 6

Student Interview Quotes About How the Use of Scientific Terms Inform Their Science Beliefs

Interests

Most interviewees who believed in astrology or reflexology mentioned personal interest as the main reason. Interview data about how personal interest impacted pseudoscience belief is presented in Table 7.

Table 7

Student Interview Quotes About How Personal Interests Inform Their Science Beliefs

Personal Experience

Some interviewees claimed that they had personal experience of astrology and/or reflexology. Examples showing how personal experiences can affect students’ beliefs in pseudoscience are provided in Table 8.

Table 8

Student Interview Quotes About How Personal Experience Informs Their Science Beliefs

Authority

Students may believe something based on the authority of others. This could be something someone has told them and/or something they have observed. Believing things on authority usually means believing them because they have been told about them by someone they think trustworthy, or they have observed someone trustworthy believing in them, or they have found them in the resources they think are trustworthy. Some examples are provided in Table 9.

Table 9

Student Interview Quotes About How Authority Figures Inform Their Science Beliefs

Discussion

Key findings of this work revealed that students’ self-assessed science literacy improved over a first-year science literacy course and undergraduate degree; however, student interest in learning science topics did not change over the course or students’ degree programs. Students held generally favourable views about science; however, on average, students at the end of a first-year general education science literacy foundation course (post) held less favourable views about science compared to students at the beginning of the course (pre). This indicates that both interest in science and positive attitudes towards science did not improve when taking a first-year general education science literacy course. When senior students were asked about their science knowledge and interest over a four-year degree, senior science students were more likely to strongly agree that their interest in and knowledge about science increased compared to senior nonscience students. Regardless of program or level of study, students reported regularly engaging with science content outside of the classroom through reading or watching, and to a lesser extent listening. Despite high science engagement, pseudoscience belief was prevalent, with 75% of students believing in at least one of four pseudoscience examples given in the questionnaire. Interview data indicated that student belief in pseudoscience topics was driven by four primary reasons, which included i) the use of scientific terms, ii) their interest in the topics, iii) their personal experience with the topics, and iv) authority figures who motivated their beliefs. These findings indicate areas where undergraduate general education is advancing positive science views and engagement in undergraduate students, while also offering areas for concern, pedagogical improvement, and future research.

Science literacy is necessary for full participation in democratic and cultural discourse and to make informed personal and economic decisions that are so often influenced by scientific issues (Snow & Dibner, 2016). Liberal education curriculum strives to enhance undergraduate student science literacy across programs and levels of study. We found that students’ self-reported science literacy increased over a single general education science literacy course. This finding aligns with Vandergrift et al. (2020), who report a similarly modest increase in self-reported science literacy over a general education science course. Vandergrift et al. also found a weak but significant correlation between students’ self-reported science literacy and instructors’ assessments of their students’ science literacy as well as academic proficiency. These results suggest that students’ perceptions of their own science literacy may align with other measures of science literacy; however, this has not been found in all cases. Cartwright et al. (2020) found that over the duration of a fourth-year science course, students’ perceptions of their science literacy improved while practical science literacy scores decreased. These studies suggest that students’ perceptions of their science literacy and competencies may not be aligned in all cases, highlighting an area for further investigation. Comparing self-assessed science literacy to objective measures is beyond the scope of the current project but remains an interesting area for future research.

Despite increases in self-reported science literacy over a single course and four-year undergraduate degree, students’ self-reported interest in learning about science did not change. Interest in science was generally high among most students and, therefore, this lack of difference between pre-post and junior-senior groups may be due to a ceiling effect, where measurable increases are not possible. Engagement in science activities outside of course requirements was also found to be high and likewise did not increase pre-post while increasing slightly over a four-year degree (junior to senior). It is possible that engagement was higher in the pre compared to post group due to different demands for students at the beginning compared to the end of the semester. In both the fall and winter semesters, students are coming off a break where they may have had more time and interest to engage with science content. In contrast, at the end of the semester, students are more likely to be busy with coursework and have less time and interest to engage with science outside of course requirements. When comparing junior to senior, however, it is notable that reading scientific content was 24% higher in senior compared to junior students. This highlights the importance of teaching science concepts that are interesting and relevant to students, to promote relevance and interest in science topics. Future work is needed to understand how students’ perceptions of their own science literacy may influence their interest and confidence to engage with science concepts and vice versa.

Given the rapid pace of science advancement, science literacy education should strive to provide a modern, relevant view of science to general science students. Scientific issues of the day should be front and centre within an evolving science curriculum. These issues can have personal, democratic, economic, or cultural implications highlighting the range of value that science literacy has for individuals and broader society (Snow & Dibner, 2016). Science literacy education should balance foundational knowledge because you can’t think critically about nothing (Anelli, 2011; Trefil, 2008) with practical scientific reasoning, skills, and competencies individuals can use to make scientifically informed decisions about their daily lives (Feinstein, 2010). The role of science education should not be to establish a balance of these components, but rather to provide access to the requisite scientific content for students to learn enough and the motivation to engage with science so that they can become confident, competent outsiders (Feinstein, 2010). Our data demonstrated generally high interest among undergraduate students in learning about science, which is unsurprisingly higher in science compared to nonscience majors. It is important that general education curriculum strives to engage nonscience majors, demonstrating the value that science literacy can have in their lives, and motivate students to continue to learn about science topics beyond the classroom.

One goal of science literacy education is to prepare citizens who are sympathetic to science (DeBoer, 2000; Snow & Dibner, 2016). This educational goal accepts that science has been a net good for humanity, despite its limitations and examples of misuse over time. In preparing a citizenry with positive views about science, scientific endeavours will continue to be supported and science expertise valued. We evaluated students’ attitudes towards science by asking them how strongly they agreed with four statements about the importance of science and science research funding. Overall, we found senior students held slightly more favourable views than junior students, while positive attitudes were lower in all cases in the post compared to pre groups sampled from a general education science literacy course. This finding, that students held less favourable views about science at the end compared to the beginning of the course is surprising and concerning given that this course aims to increase students’ understanding of and respect for science. It may be that, for a majority of students, the science topics were not presented as relevant to their daily lives and thus favourable attitudes towards science decreased.

Foundational science knowledge is an important dimension of science literacy (Anelli, 2011; Trefil, 2008). However, without demonstrating why content matters to students, they may develop less favourable views. Motivation to learn about science has been shown to correlate with the perceived relevance to career goals (Glynn et al., 2009). It is important that science instructors, especially in general education courses, recognize and utilize the extrinsic motivations of students. The relevance of science topics to students should be presented along with the core foundational concepts. These findings indicate that a four-year undergraduate general education may broadly increase the extent to which students perceive the value of science; however, these gains were not due to a specific science literacy course. Science students held more favourable views than nonscience students, highlighting the need to promote the value of science to nonscience majors in general education courses. Our work aligns with others who reject the deficit model of science communication, which supposes that exposure to science content is enough to increase public support and science literacy (Simis et al., 2016). To increase student and public support for science, it is important that instructors and communicators contextualize content, demonstrating relevance in ways that motivate students to learn.

One dimension of science literacy is the ability to use evidence-based reasoning in decision making. It is reasonable to believe that science education would improve an individual’s ability to make scientifically based decisions in their everyday lives and to distinguish science from pseudoscience. This assumption is complicated by research that has shown that people tend to make meaning of science they encounter in their lives using culturally based narratives that often do not include science (Baram-Tsabari, 2022; Carrion, 2018). A 20-year survey conducted in the United States and completed in 2011 investigated undergraduate science literacy and found high rates of pseudoscience belief (Impey et al., 2011). Of the students surveyed, over 40% believed that the positions of the planets affect everyday life (e.g., astrology) and over 15% stated that aliens visited ancient human civilizations (Impey et al., 2011). These striking findings are replicated in the current study where we found 38% of undergraduates report believing in astrology and 75% of respondents believed in at least one for the four pseudosciences included in the questionnaire. Most striking in respect to these data is how many students believe that these pseudoscience topics are somewhat or very scientific. For example, 49% of senior science students thought astrology was scientific, 4% more than senior nonscience students. We believe science students are learning scientific language, prevalent in pseudoscience, without gaining the deeper scientific reasoning skills necessary to detect pseudoscientific claims. This explanation is supported by our interview data where science students frequently used scientific jargon to explain their pseudoscience beliefs. British physicist James Clerk Maxwell believed that “such indeed is the respect paid to science, that the most absurd opinions may become current, provided they are expressed in language, the sound of which recalls some well-known scientific phrase” (as cited in Davenport & Rosenthal, 2013, p.139). The Impey et al. (2011) survey found that pseudoscience belief rates did not correlate with level of science literacy, and we similarly did not find differences between science and nonscience majors. We did find pseudoscience belief rates to be lower at the end (post) compared to the beginning (pre) of a first-year general education science literacy course; however, on average, belief rates in senior students were found to be close to belief rates in junior students. These data suggest that a four-year degree, at our institution, which includes a general education component, is not protective against believing in pseudoscience, although short-lived gains over a single science literacy course may be present. We believe that the increased scientific vocabulary of science students may increase rather than decrease their belief in pseudoscience, which is supported by our findings. More work is needed to explore strategies that may improve pseudoscience awareness and scientific reasoning skills in our general education curriculum.

The concept of science literacy has been suggested to be more of a slogan to rally educators to support science instruction than a measurable education outcome (DeBoer, 2000). Given the pace of scientific and technological advancement and the relevance these concepts have for individual and democratic decision making, as well as cultural significance, we echo the rallying cry and encourage more effort to adapt and optimize science education for the modern world and the modern student. Our findings suggest that at our institution more work is needed to increase student interest in science among nonscience students and to engage in more classroom discussions about the value science brings to everyday life to enhance positive science attitudes. Exposure to scientific concepts is often not enough to increase student engagement or positive views about science. We found pseudoscience belief to be high among all students, and more focus is needed to provide students the competencies required to differentiate science from pseudoscientific claims.

Understanding students’—especially nonscience students’—perceptions of their science literacy, their attitudes and engagement with science, and their pseudoscience beliefs is important in designing general education courses that aim to empower scientific thinking (Vandegrift et al., 2020). There is no single solution to enhance undergraduate student scientific literacy and reduce pseudoscience beliefs. Teaching critical thinking through approaches like the FLICC model is one approach science educators could try to protect against science denialism (Cook, 2020). The FLICC model presents five science denial techniques scientifically literate people should know: fake experts, logical fallacies, impossible expectations, cherry picking, and conspiracy theories. As the internet increases the spread of misinformation and conspiracy theories, it is vital that a scientifically literate public understands and can defend against these five techniques of denialism (Diethelm & McKee, 2009; Peters & Besley, 2020). Another approach to limit pseudoscientific belief is to pre-expose and reveal weak pseudoscientific arguments to students. Known as inoculation theory, pre-exposure has been shown to confer resistance to persuasion across different issues including scientific misinformation (Compton et al., 2021). It is important that instructors have the freedom to organize their general education science courses around science content that they feel comfortable with (DeBoer, 2000), while promoting a shared vision of science literacy that enhances student interest, confidence, and engagement. In addition to presenting foundational science content, science literacy curriculums should also strive to combat pseudoscience belief through techniques such as the FLICC model and inoculation theory. Undergraduate science courses are often the last formal science instruction students receive, and they play an important role in promoting science trust and support in the community.

Conflict of Interest

The authors declare no conflicts of interest regarding the publication of this paper.

Funding and Acknowledgements

This work was support by a Mount Royal University Scholarship of Teaching and Learning Launching Stipend and a Mokakiiks SoTL Collaborate Award. We want to thank research assistants Nahuel Paladino and Basira Yaqoub for their contributions supporting this project

Author Biography

Nicholas Strzalkowski (nstrzalkowski@mtroyal.ca) is an Associate Professor at Mount Royal University, cross-appointed in the departments of Biology and General Education. His research interests include the sensorimotor control of human movement and science literacy education. He believes that an undergraduate liberal/general education has great value for individuals and society, a belief that has motivated the current project.

Mandana Sobhanzadeh (msobhanzadeh@mtroyal.ca) is an Associate Professor at Mount Royal University in the Department of General Education. Mandana does research in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) education research, educational psychology, and mathematical physics. She is passionate about undergraduate numeracy and scientific literacy education.

References

Appendix