NORMAL SCIENCE AND THE PARANORMAL - THE EFFECT OF A SCIENTIFIC METHODCOURSE ON STUDENTS BELIEFS

A nonequivalent control group design was employed to test the effectiv eness of an interdisciplinary course on the scientific method in incre asing students' skepticism toward the paranormal. The course explored legitimate methods of scientific inquiry and compared them to faulty, and often fraudulent, methods of pseudosciences. Topics included eleme ntary logic, logical fallacies, statistics, probability, the scientifi c method, characteristics of pseudosciences, and the prevalence and pe rsistence of pseudoscientific theories and beliefs. Students enrolled in a psychology and law class served as a control group for the ''Scie nce and Pseudoscience' class (the treatment group). At the start of th e term, students in both groups completed the Belief in the Paranormal Scale (Jones, Russell, and Nickel, 1977) and a measure of beliefs in their own psychic powers. At the end of the semester, students complet ed these same measures. Results demonstrated that while there were no initial differences between the control and treatment groups in their belief in the paranormal, students in the ''Science and Pseudoscience' ' class demonstrated substantially reduced belief in the paranormal re lative to the control class. There were no changes in students' belief s in their own paranormal powers. Implications for science education a nd research on teaching thinking are discussed.