Studies show that misconceptions about psychology are pervasive. This study examined how the strength of prior beliefs and the sources of misinformation relate to conceptual change following an introductory psychology course. Ninety introductory psychology students completed a 36-item "Psychological Information" questionnaire. Testing during the 1 st day of the semester showed 38.5% accuracy whereas testing during the last week showed 66.3% accuracy. These results suggest that misconceptions remain prevalent but can be reduced by taking an introductory psychology course. Our data also indicate that strength of belief is an important transitional variable that may reflect the process of change. Finally, although personal experience and media are important sources of misinformation, we found that they do not promote strongly held beliefs.

Concerns over effects of 'textisms' on literacy have been reinforced by research identifying processing costs associated with reading textisms. But to what extent do such studies reflect actual textism use? This study examined the textual characteristics of 936 text messages in English (13391 words). Message length, nonstandard spelling, sender and message characteristics and word frequency were analyzed. The data showed that 25% of word content used nonstandard spelling, the most frequently occurring category involving omission of capital letters. Types of nonstandard spelling varied only slightly depending on the purpose of the text message, while the overall proportion of nonstandard spelling did not differ significantly. Less than 0.2% of content was 'semantically unrecoverable.' Implications for experimental studies of textisms are discussed.

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The present study examined the possibility that the language and response format used in self-report questionnaires influences how readily people endorse misconceptions. Four versions of a 40-item misconception test were administered to European (n = 281) and North American (n = 123) psychology and nonpsychology undergraduates. Response format and ambiguity of phrasing were manipulated. Results indicate that misconception endorsement was strongly influenced by both question phrasing and response format, with students showing more agreement and less disagreement when misconceptions were ambiguously phrased or a 7-point rating scale used. These procedure-related effects were observed for European and North American psychology and nonpsychology students alike irrespective of the amount of time they had spent studying the subject. Implications for designing pedagogical procedures to assess student’s disciplinary knowledge and beliefs are discussed.

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