GEOSCIENCE EDUCATION AND MOTIVATED REASONING: LEARNING ABOUT CLIMATE CHANGE

Climate change is politicized in the U.S. Social group identities and cognitive predispositions influence a person’s perception of “facts” surrounding such politicized topics. Individuals choose to dismiss or ignore certain observations because they conflict with group beliefs or one’s psychological needs. This is motivated reasoning. Opinions and knowledge about climate change are correlated with political affiliation and individual differences in cognitive preferences such as need for closure, belief in a just world and comfort with authority. Motivated reasoning is difficult to dislodge for politicized subjects. We ask whether motivated reasoning around climate change persists after a 14-week college-level geoscience course. We used a quasi-experimental design that compared students in non-major geoscience classes focusing on climate (N=134) with students in similar courses that did not address climate change (N=94). Students completed surveys before, during and after the course that assessed cognitive preferences, political affiliation, general science and climate change knowledge, and opinions on anthropogenic climate change. All students showed pronounced tendencies toward motivated reasoning at the beginning of the class, evidenced by significant correlations (p < 0.05) between climate change knowledge and opinions, and cognitive preferences. At the end of the classes, evidence of motivated reasoning diminished. Fewer correlations between psychological variables and climate change opinions reached significance, and those that did were less robust at the end of the semester. The effect was similar for courses focused on climate change and those on another topic in geoscience. These data demonstrate that a semester-long course in geoscience can significantly reduce motivated reasoning around climate change. All courses were taught using active learning pedagogies in which students handled data regularly. We next investigate the role of pedagogy in this effect.