Examining the measurement of epistemic style: The development and validation of the Epistemic Preference Indicator-Revised

Elphinstone, Brad; Farrugia, Matthew; Critchley, Christine; Eigenberger, Martin E.

doi:10.1016/j.paid.2013.10.013

Cited by 6 publications

(9 citation statements)

References 15 publications

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“…Furthermore, to assess individual differences between participants, we included a measure for epistemic style (Elphinstone, Farrugia, Critchley, & Eigenberger, 2014). This inventory measures people's preferences for information processing and problem solving: One scale reflects preference for intellective style reasoning (e.g., by deep reflection on problems), and the other a default style reasoning (e.g., by finding quick solutions).…”

Section: Studymentioning

confidence: 99%

Does Scientific Uncertainty in News Articles Affect Readers’ Trust and Decision-Making?

Hendriks

Jucks

2020

MaC

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Even though a main goal of science is to reduce the uncertainty in scientific results by applying ever-improving research methods, epistemic uncertainty is an integral part of science. As such, while uncertainty might be communicated in news articles about climate science, climate skeptics have also exploited this uncertainty to cast doubt on science itself. We performed two studies to assess whether scientific uncertainty affects laypeople’s assessments of issue uncertainty, the credibility of the information, their trust in scientists and climate science, and impacts their decision-making. In addition, we addressed how these effects are influenced by further information on relevant scientific processes, because knowing that uncertainty goes along with scientific research could ease laypeople’s interpretations of uncertainty around evidence and may even protect against negative impacts of such uncertainty on trust. Unexpectedly, in study 1, after participants read both a text about research methods and a news article that included scientific uncertainty, they had lower trust in the scientists’ assertions than when they read the uncertain news article alone (but this did not impact trust in climate science or decision-making). In study 2, we tested whether these results occurred due to participants overestimating the scientific uncertainty at hand. Hence, we varied the framing of uncertainty in the text on scientific processes. We found that exaggerating the scientific uncertainty produced by scientific processes (vs. framing the uncertainty as something to be expected) did not negatively affect participants’ trust ratings. However, the degree to which participants preferred effortful reasoning on problems (intellective epistemic style) correlated with ratings of trust in scientists and climate science and with their decision-making. In sum, there was only little evidence that the introduction of uncertainty in news articles would affect participants’ ratings of trust and their decision-making, but their preferred style of reasoning did.

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Section: Studymentioning

confidence: 99%

Does Scientific Uncertainty in News Articles Affect Readers’ Trust and Decision-Making?

Hendriks

Jucks

2020

MaC

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“…Although it was small, this correlation supports our hypothesis. Since people high in intellectual processing enjoy and take time to think about problems ( Elphinstone et al, 2014 ), it is likely that these individuals identified that the illusion questions lacked a component to be answerable.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The Epistemic Preference Indicator-Revised ( Elphinstone et al, 2014 ) measures processing preferences and is an eight-item instrument with two dimensions: default processing (for example, “ When confronting the deep philosophical issues of life I am more inclined to just deal with it, get the job done, and move on ”) and intellectual processing (for example “ In the simplest terms, I have a strong need to study just how and why things happen ”). Questions were answered on a five-point Likert-type scale, ranging from 1 = Do not agree to 5 = Agree completely .…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Shallow or deep processing might influence answerability judgments. Two kinds of processing preferences are measured by the EPI-r scale ( Elphinstone et al, 2014 ): preference for a more automatic default type of processing , EPI-r Default (similar to system 1 processing) and preference for a deeper intellectual type of processing measured by EPI-r Intellectual (similar to system 2 processing). We expected that participants with default processing preferences would tend to choose interpretations that come quickly to mind and are easy to handle and therefore would find questions more answerable.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Does Anyone Know the Answer to that Question? Individual Differences in Judging Answerability

2016

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Occasionally people may attempt to judge whether a question can be answered today, or if not, if it can be answered in the future. For example, a person may consider whether enough is known about the dangers of living close to a nuclear plant, or to a major electricity cable, for them to be willing to do so, and state-authorities may consider whether questions about the dangers of new technologies have been answered, or in a reasonable future can be, for them to be willing to invest money in research aiming develop such technologies. A total of 476 participants, for each of 22 knowledge questions, either judged whether it was answerable today (current answerability), or judged when it could be answered (future answerability). The knowledge questions varied with respect to the expected consensus concerning their answerability: consensus questions (high expected consensus), non-consensus questions (lower expected consensus), and illusion questions (formulated to appear answerable, but with crucial information absent). The questions’ judged answerability level on the two scales was highly correlated. For both scales, consensus questions were rated more answerable than the non-consensus questions, with illusion questions falling in-between. The result for the illusion questions indicates that a feeling of answerability can be created even when it is unlikely that somebody can come up with an answer. The results also showed that individual difference variables influenced the answerability judgments. Higher levels of belief in certainty of knowledge, mankind’s knowledge, and mankind’s efficacy were related to judging the non-consensus questions as more answerable. Participants rating the illusion questions as answerable rated the other answerability questions as more, or equally, answerable compared to the other participants and showed tendencies to prefer a combination of more epistemic default processing and less intellectual processing.

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“…Participants completed an online questionnaire, which comprised demographic questions, questions about learning preferences developed for the current study, and the Epistemic Preference Indicator -Revised (Elphinstone, Farrugia, Critchley, & Eigenberger, 2014).…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Students' voice regarding important characteristics of online and face-to-face higher education

Buzwell¹,

Farrugia²,

Williams³

2016

Sensoria

Self Cite

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The proportion of Higher Education students studying online has increased exponentially in the last decade, however not much is known about this cohort and what they want from their university experience. Furthermore, most universities are attempting to enhance the online resources provided to their on-campus students; however, there is a lack of clarity regarding what aspects of online study on-campus students may value. Do on-campus students value the same aspects of learning as their online counterparts, or do universities need to develop different resources for the various cohorts? In the current study, 525 first year psychology students studying across three study modes (on-campus, online via Open Universities Australia and online via a private provider affiliated with a university) responded to an online questionnaire assessing characteristics associated with both online and face-to-face teaching, and asking what students value in teaching academics. The results are discussed in terms of how universities can best improve their online offerings and how they may incorporate desired 'offline' experiences into an online environment.

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Examining the measurement of epistemic style: The development and validation of the Epistemic Preference Indicator-Revised

Cited by 6 publications

References 15 publications

Does Scientific Uncertainty in News Articles Affect Readers’ Trust and Decision-Making?

Does Scientific Uncertainty in News Articles Affect Readers’ Trust and Decision-Making?

Does Anyone Know the Answer to that Question? Individual Differences in Judging Answerability

Students' voice regarding important characteristics of online and face-to-face higher education

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