Two Birds With One Myth-Debunking Campaign: Engaging Students to Target Psychological Misconceptions

Misconceptions of psychological phenomena are widespread and often not easily eliminated—even among students completing college-level psychology courses. As part of a research methods psychology course, students developed public-service-announcement-style posters as part of a psychology myth-debunking campaign and presented these to students enrolled in introductory psychology courses on campus. Results revealed that both the introductory students who were exposed to the myth-debunking campaign and the research method students who created the campaign endorsed significantly fewer myths than their respective comparison groups. The research methods students viewed their experiences with the myth-debunking campaign as enjoyable and valuable in developing scientific inquiry skills.