Misconceptions and Critical Thinking Ability In Undergraduate Exercise Science Students, Vocational Fitness Students, and Exercise Professionals

This research is the first known cross-sectional and longitudinal investigation of misconceptions and critical thinking in exercise science and fitness students and professionals. Misconceptions were higher in students than degree-qualified professionals, though there was no difference between vocational graduates and vocationally-qualified personal trainers. An online, content-specific critical thinking course was effective in reducing misconceptions and improving critical thinking ability in professionals. Critical thinking appears to be more important than specific knowledge in reducing misconceptions

An Evaluation of the Privacy Policies of Library Vendors

This project aims to evaluate the degree to which various library vendors are taking the privacy of library users into account. In 2018, the Library Freedom Project put together a Vendor Privacy Scorecard analyzing the privacy policies of twelve major vendors, but no follow-up study seems to have been conducted by the Project since then. I intend to conduct my own updated privacy policy audit of these and other significant library vendors (particularly those used by NC LIVE) to gain a better understanding of how well these vendors are accounting for and protecting the privacy of individual library users today. This largely involves an analysis (based on the criteria used by the Library Freedom Project and the guidelines found in the ALA Library Privacy Checklist for Vendors) of vendors’ posted privacy policies. In my presentation, I will discuss the results of my analysis

Sorting by LC Call Number in Excel

Sorting by Library of Congress (LC) call number in Excel is problematic because Excel does not treat LC call numbers as numbers. In practice, this means that Excel sorts LC call numbers based on each successive digit in the call number rather than the overall value of each call number. (for example, a call number beginning with PS507 would be sorted after one beginning with PS4998 in a default Excel sort). In this presentation, I demonstrate one method for accurately sorting by LC call number in Excel

If You Only Knew the Power of the Dark Web! Finding Intellectual Freedom, Privacy, and Anonymity Online

While the dark web attracts largely negative and sensationalistic headlines as a haven for criminality, it (and the tools used to access it) also offers knowledgeable users the ability to surf the web free of government surveillance and social media/marketing tracking and to exercise free speech in an environment of virtual anonymity. As such, the dark web supports librarians’ values regarding privacy and intellectual freedom. This presentation will give librarians a realistic look at both the positive and negative aspects of the dark web, provide them with examples of the types of users who may want to explore or make use of the dark web, and introduce them to dark web tools that can be used to surf even the surface web anonymously

Using Analytic Tools to Measure Overall Trends and Growth Patterns in Digital Commons Collections

Digital Commons @ Gardner-Webb University was launched in Fall 2015 and currently has over 1300 papers including: theses and dissertations, journals in Education, Psychology, and Undergraduate Research, University Archives, and faculty scholarship activities. The repository has a small, but growing number of collections that continue to show significant year-to-year document download count increases, particularly in the nursing and education theses and dissertation collections. Digital Commons provides a number of ways to track collection statistics and identify repository access and download trends. This presentation will look at how we used the Digital Commons Dashboard report tool and Google Analytics to identify the most popular collections and where they’re being accessed on campus and globally. Using this data, we were able to write targeted metadata and include third party tools such as the Internet Archive BookReader in order to improve outreach to the campus and global scholarly community

Conspiracy theories fuel prejudice towards minority group

Some 60 of British people believe in at least one conspiracy theory, a recent poll reveals. From the idea that 9/11 was an inside job to the notion that climate change is a hoax, conspiracy theories divert attention away from the facts in favour of plots and schemes involving powerful and secret groups. With the aid of modern technology, conspiracy theories have found a natural home online

Conspiracy Theories in the Classroom: Problems and Potential Solutions

Conspiracy narratives and speculative rumors of a conspiracist nature are intermittently popular in youth culture, as well as in political discourse. The general motivations of conspiracy beliefs relate to essential needs (for knowledge, to feel safe and secure, to feel good about oneself and one’s group), but evidence shows these needs are not actually served by conspiracy beliefs. Conspiracy theories tend to be explanations that conflict with best academic knowledge, and belief in them leads to less support for democratic processes and institutions. They play a role in political polarization, and they are used in identity-protective cognition. They may both express and arouse “strong feelings and divide communities and society”. Conspiracy theories as a general topic thus satisfy general criteria for controversial issues. At the same time, they are particularly interesting because they hover between the superficially and the inherently controversial: although in practice often resistant to contradictory evidence, they generally appeal to reason and evidence. While they sometimes are rooted in deep religious and religion-like beliefs, we argue that this makes them good cases for practicing analytical skills that could better serve all the needs above. Since cases and topics can cover the gamut from the subject-related to the cross-curricular and civic behavior, and the skills should be broadly transferable, using conspiracy theories as a topic has a high possible upside. However, conspiracy theories in a school setting have not yet been a topic of much research. This article takes as its starting point interviews with teachers and preliminary investigations of adolescents, before presenting an outline of possible didactic tools for teachers based on the general findings of effective interventions on conspiracy beliefs and related issue

The social psychological consequences of conspiracy theories

Conspiracy theories point accusing fingers at authorities, and offer alternatives to official explanations. Scholars have argued that in doing so, they may therefore subvert social systems and undermine confidence in established political, health and environmental positions. In this thesis we empirically put these arguments to the test. In four experiments, we found that exposure to conspiracy theories reduced people’s intention to engage in (a) the political system, (b) environmentally-friendly initiatives and (c) childhood vaccination (Chapters 2 and 3). Ironically however, instead of undermining the social status quo, we found in four experiments that conspiracy theories appear to bolster satisfaction with social systems. They appear to do so because they explain tragedies, disasters and social problems on the actions of destructive individuals and groups, rather than inherent flaws in society. By drawing attention away from the deeper limitations of social systems, conspiracy theories may therefore reduce, rather than increase, the likelihood of social and political change (Chapter 4). Finally, we found that once people have been exposed to conspiracy theories, the negative effects are difficult to attenuate. In two experiments we tested interventions based on counter-arguments (e.g., that vaccines are safe instead of harmful) and a pre-warning that detailed people’s tendency to rely on retracted information. However, both were found to be ineffective in improving intentions to vaccinate a fictional child (Chapter 5). Overall, the research outlined in this thesis highlights some of the potentially damaging consequences of conspiracy theories. This research opens up new avenues for enquiry and calls for ongoing investigations to address the growth of conspiracism in society