Educational Psychologist

ISSN: 0046-1520 (Print) 1532-6985 (Online) Journal homepage: https://www.tandfonline.com/loi/hedp20

Evaluating sources of scientific evidence

and claims in the post-truth era may require
reappraising plausibility judgments

Gale M. Sinatra & Doug Lombardi

To cite this article: Gale M. Sinatra & Doug Lombardi (2020) Evaluating sources of scientific
evidence and claims in the post-truth era may require reappraising plausibility judgments,
Educational Psychologist, 55:3, 120-131, DOI: 10.1080/00461520.2020.1730181

To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/00461520.2020.1730181

Published online: 26 Mar 2020.

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EDUCATIONAL PSYCHOLOGIST
2020, VOL. 55, NO. 3, 120–131
https://doi.org/10.1080/00461520.2020.1730181

Evaluating sources of scientific evidence and claims in the post-truth era may
require reappraising plausibility judgments
Gale M. Sinatraa and Doug Lombardib
a
Rossier School of Education, University of Southern California; bHuman Development and Quantitative Methodology, University of
Maryland, College Park

ABSTRACT
When individuals have questions about scientific issues, they often search the Internet. Evaluating
sources of information and claims they find has become more difficult in the post-truth era.
Students are often taught source evaluation techniques, but the proliferation of “fake news” has
resulted in a misinformation arms race. As searchers get more sophisticated identifying misleading
information, so do purveyors of information who intend to mislead. We draw on a theoretical
model of plausibility judgments and current theory and research in source evaluation to suggest
that the post-truth era elevates the need for critical evaluation of online information about scien-
tific issues. We argue that explicitly reappraising plausibility judgments may be a crucial addition
to evaluating the connections between sources of information and knowledge claims. Individuals
who search for and read a scientific article online should ask themselves: Is this explanation plaus-
ible, and how do I know?

We’re not living through a crisis about what is true, we’re living
through a crisis about how we know whether something
is true.1
New parents wonder if they should vaccinate their children
or expose them early on to peanuts to inoculate them
against developing allergic reactions. Health conscious con-
sumers wonder if genetically modified organisms (GMOs)
are safe to eat or if they should support GMO labeling ini-
tiatives that appear on local ballots. Social media followers
receive shared articles from friends about asthma rates for
populations living near major highways. On television, in
print, in news and information sources online, and on social
media platforms and forums, individuals either seek out or
are confronted with evidence and claims from various sour-
ces about scientific issues on a near daily basis. Individuals
generally want to make the right choices for themselves and
their families, and therefore, they may wish to evaluate
these claims.
When individuals attempt to locate or evaluate scientific
information, a likely first strategy they employ is to “just
google it.” Although there is evidence that even so called
digital natives (those born after the invention of the
Internet) still struggle to identify “fake news” (Wineburg &
McGrew, 2017), students and members of the public are
becoming more aware that they cannot believe everything
that they read on the Internet. Many do know that informa-
tion must be checked in some manner for veracity. Even as
we hear “it must be true, I read it on the Internet” used as a
popular punchline, it is difficult for students and members
of the general public to evaluate sources of evidence and val-
idity of alternative claims about a scientific issue that they
read online (Greene, Sandoval, & Bråten, 2016; Sinatra &
Hofer, 2016).
We are, in a sense, experiencing an information arms
race. Wardle and Derakhshan (2018) suggested that there
are three types of information involved in a “weaponized
context:” misinformation, disinformation, and malinforma-
tion. Misinformation is false content shared by a person
who does not realize it is false or misleading.
Disinformation is content that is intentionally false and
designed to cause harm and is often used for profit and/or
political gains, or to cause trouble broadly. Malinformation
is genuine (i.e., truthful) information that is spread with an
intent to cause harm. Even as individuals increase the
sophistication of their search skills, the innocent prolifer-
ation of misinformation is spreading at an alarming rate
(e.g., via social media memes). The “weaponization” of mis-
information on the Internet and in social media means that
bad actors are ramping up the sophistication of their meth-
ods of disguising misinformation as scientific information,
even as information consumers catch on to their latest
schemes. This is indeed one reason some have argued we
have entered into the “post-truth” era (McIntyre, 2018).
This brings us to the questions we explore here: What is
the “post-truth” era and how does it impact evaluation of
scientific evidence and explanations? What is the current state

CONTACT Gale M. Sinatra gsinatra@usc.edu Rossier School of Education, University of Southern California, 3470 Trousdale Parkway, Waite Phillips Hall,
Los Angeles, CA 90089-4036.
1
(Doctorow, 2017, February 25).
ß 2020 Division 15, American Psychological Association

of instruction on how to evaluate incoming information scien-
tifically? How do individuals think about the nature of know-
ledge and knowing and how does that impact their
evaluations? What is needed to improve individuals’ evalua-
tions of evidence and claims in the post-truth era? These
questions were motivated through discussions with Sarit
Barzilai and Clark Chinn, guest editors of this special issue,
and were framed to address their aims and objectives for
the issue as a whole. Our objectives were to bring our own
perspective and prior research to bear on addressing
these issues.
We ask and attempt to answer these four questions in
the following sections. We begin by examining the chal-
lenges of sourcing in the post-truth era. Next, we explore
why education has failed to meet these challenges so far by
examining both the strengths and weaknesses of current
sourcing instruction. Next, we draw on relevant theory and
research in epistemic cognition to expand our view of the
source evaluation process to include an additional step
(i.e., evaluating the connections between data and alternative
claims that conflict). Specifically, we posit that plausibility
judgments could enhance and extend source evaluation.
Finally, we provide our vision for improving instruction
about evaluating sources and explanations in the
post-truth era.
What is the “post-truth” era and how does it impact
evaluation of scientific evidence and explanations?
Many of today’s societal challenges are global in nature and
increasingly require evaluation of complex scientific infor-
mation. Issues such as climate migration, freshwater and
food security, and storm intensity are complex, multifaceted,
and interrelated (see for example, Black, Bennett, Thomas,
& Beddington, 2011; Coumou & Rahmstorf, 2012; Wheeler
& Von Braun, 2013). At the same time that individuals need
to evaluate increasingly difficult scientific issues that impact
their lives, many argue that we have entered into the “post-
truth era” (McIntyre, 2018). What exactly is the post-truth
era? Oxford English Dictionary chose “post-truth” to be the
word of the year in 2016 after the US presidential campaign
revealed the extent of misinformation online. They defined
post-truth as, “Relating to or denoting circumstances in
which objective facts are less influential in shaping public
opinion than appeals to emotion and personal belief”
(Oxford English Dictionary, n.d.). Thus, the argument goes,
we have entered a time wherein individuals disagree about
basic evidence-based facts and rely more on personal beliefs
and feelings in their decision making rather than on tested
and validated knowledge.
However, is post-truth really a new phenomenon?
Politicians have always sought to appeal to emotions and
beliefs when they address the public and individuals have
always interpreted or constructed their own meaning of
events. Scientific advances are often first met with skepti-
cism or even disbelief. There are individuals (both before
and since the so-called post-truth era) who believe that
EDUCATIONAL PSYCHOLOGIST 121
NASA faked the Moon landing, the Earth is flat, and climate
change is a hoax started by Al Gore.
Clearly personal beliefs and emotions have long played a
role in how we interpret events or scientific findings and
conspiracy theories and science denial are hardly new.
However, according to philosopher Lee McIntyre, there are
some key factors that characterize the shift to what the term
post-truth era may be capturing (McIntyre, 2018). The first
is the nearly ubiquitous and constant presence of informa-
tion easily accessed through mobile technology and Internet
connected devises. What was once a “crack-pot” theory your
cousin told you at dinner, is now a movement with a
Twitter following, a website, a podcast, and possibly even a
political action group (Sinatra & Jacobson, 2019). A second
facet is widespread and systematic leveraging of mis- and
disinformation to foment support for a particular point of
view using social media spread by corporate or political
interests (Kendeou, Robinson, & McCrudden, 2019).
Repeating incorrect information over and over again, with
the goal of misleading information “going viral” assures that
the public remains confused over who or what to believe.
Third, the repetition of misinformation (even when it is to
correct the misconception) may even serve to further ingrain
the belief in the misinformation, which has been called the
“backfire effect,” (Lewandowsky, Ecker, & Cook, 2017).
Fourth, turning false information into a catch phrase—for
example, constructing and using a phrase such as “climate
change is a hoax”—serves to convince both the messenger
and the receiver of the message that the misinformation is
indeed fact. According to McIntyre, there is nothing new
about ignorance, delusion, or willful distortion of the truth
however, “the real problem … is not merely the content of
any particular (outrageous) belief, but the overarching idea
that–depending on what one wants to be true—some facts
matter more than others” (McIntyre, 2018, p. 10).
One additional noteworthy shift in the post-truth era is
the leveraging of source “expertise” to add value to misinfor-
mation and to discredit scientific information. The tobacco
industry is often given the dubious distinction of originating
the strategy of “manufactured doubt” (Biddle, Kidd, &
Leuschner, 2017; Oreskes & Conway, 2011). Some readers
may remember the 1994 hearing in the US congress where
one by one, a panel of tobacco industry leaders leaned into
their microphones and denied any link between smoking
and cancer (for a description of the hearing see, Oreskes,
2019). The strategy of burying the actual science and
debunking and discrediting any findings that do become
public as “junk science” became the playbook for those
interested in debunking evolution and climate science.
The post-truth era has ushered in a proliferation of mis-
and dis-information about science online. Researchers are
calling for a “multidisciplinary effort to combat the issue”
(Kendeou et al., 2019, p. 4). Students need to be better
equipped to evaluate science information they find online
from various sources. Hope can be found in instructional
approaches to evaluating sources and explanations. Next we
explore the challenges of teaching and learning about how
to evaluate scientific information found online by examining
122 G. M. SINATRA AND D. LOMBARDI
the strengths and weaknesses of current sourcing
instruction.
What is the current state of instruction on how to
scientifically evaluate online information?
Students may be encouraged to search for and evaluate
information they find online, often to answer a scientific
question. For example, when a fourth grader asks, “How
long can a frog stay underwater?” a teacher may say, “I’m
not sure, let’s google that to find out.” As noted, many
teachers and students know that they should do some evalu-
ation of the source of information that they find. By infor-
mation source, we mean a website, a newspaper, a blog, a
textbook, or other print or digital messages or resources.
The term “source” generally refers to the person or persons
who authored such content, although source and informa-
tion source are often used interchangeably. (For a discussion
of various definitions of source and sourcing see Brante &
Strømsø, 2018). Teachers may tell students to read the
“about” section on a webpage to identify the source. If high
school students want to know if vaping is safer than smok-
ing and searches for the answer online, it would be helpful
to know that a website sponsored by a manufacturer of vap-
ing pipes may not be the best source of information about
evidence for vaping safety. Teachers might suggest that stu-
dents examine whether the domain address is a “.com” or a
“.org” or “.edu” or “.gov” as another strategy to learn more
about the source. A “.com” is a commercial site and teachers
might suggest this is a red flag that students should notice.
These efforts, which have expanded recently, however
laudable, are proving to be woefully insufficient. In a large
scale study of nearly 8,000 responses to tasks asking middle,
high school, and college students (remember, these are the
so called “digital natives”) to evaluate online information
“students of all ages struggled mightily” (Breakstone,
McGrew, Smith, Ortega, & Wineburg, 2018, p. 28). Middle
schoolers often failed to distinguish a news story from an
advertisement. High schoolers could not consistently identify
social media accounts, and college students often just
accepted a website’s own description without taking add-
itional steps to verify sources (McGrew, Breakstone, Ortega,
Smith, & Wineburg, 2018).
Although it is not clear how much instruction students
in the Wineburg and colleagues’ studies received, modest
efforts at instruction in sourcing (such as checking the
“about” information or the web address for a .com versus a
.org) will likely prove insufficient in the post-truth era. The
problem, as Breakstone and colleagues explained (2018), is
that the bar is constantly shifting. Consider that the term
“fake news” went from unheard of to clich
e in a matter of
months after the 2016 presidential election. Anyone can pur-
chase a “.org” domain name and therefore it is not a reliable
indicator of quality or independence of the information on a
website. A “professional” looking website used to be so
expensive that it did give some gravitas to an organization
that had one, but now with easy to use cookie cutter author-
ing tools, individuals can easily and affordably construct an
impressive looking site. Those who deal in misinformation
are increasingly savvy about how to construct the “about”
page (the only direct sourcing information available to web-
site perusers) to look, or at least seem, legitimate
(Breakstone et al., 2018).
The rapid pace of technological change, coupled with the
misinformation arms race, makes it very difficult to keep
up. In our view, there is some excellent work being done to
develop and test source evaluation instruction (see Brante &
Strømsø, 2018 for a recent review of sourcing interventions,
with effect sizes of various interventions ranging from very
small to large). For example, when university students evalu-
ate sources (by mimicking professional fact-checkers, who
quickly leave a site in question and open successive tabs of
credible sites for comparison), they increase the accuracy of
their source credibility evaluations relatively rapidly
(McGrew, Smith, Breakstone, Ortega, & Wineburg, 2019;
Supian, 2019).
In a recent study, Bråten, Brante, and Strømsø (2019)
trained instructors to teach secondary students the benefits
of sourcing (i.e., via comparison of different types of essays).
For the essays that identified sources, students could more
readily evaluate various perspectives based on citation qual-
ity (e.g., via author expertise, text type, publication venue,
and date of publication) and explicitly compare how the
non-sourced essays were more obfuscating. Students who
experienced sourcing instruction, sustained over the course
of 5 weeks, showed greater value for source information and
were more likely to attribute ideas to their source. These
outcomes also transferred to different topics (Bråten
et al., 2019).
This study suggests that sourcing strategies should focus
on evaluation through comparison of sourced and non-
sourced materials. Further, it suggests that sourcing instruc-
tion should be integrated throughout the curriculum in a
sustained manner and should focus specifically on individual
and group tasks across subject areas that matter to students’
academic performance. Additionally, Bråten et al. (2019)
emphasize that professional development of teachers will be
essential for effective implementation of explicit sourcing
strategies in this manner.
Advanced sourcing strategies and instructional techniques
such as those suggested by Bråten et al. (2019) and McGrew
et al. (2019) are necessary but may not be fully sufficient to
equip students in this time of information weaponization.
Evaluating the credibility of sources is essential but may not
go far enough when learners are also faced with competing
knowledge claims that may be linked to various sources.
Therefore, in such situations, students should also learn how
to evaluate the connections between sources of information
and knowledge claims, such as scientific explanations about
complex phenomena. This extends the process of gauging
source credibility toward the additional step of evaluating
explanations for truthfulness, especially when individuals are
faced with judging the relative plausibility of alternative, and
often contradictory, claims (Lombardi, Nussbaum, &
Sinatra, 2016). Fortunately, the bourgeoning field of theory
and research on epistemic cognition could shed light on the

pressing problem of evaluating sources and knowledge
claims (e.g., scientific explanations) in the post-truth era.
Next, we turn to that literature for guidance and draw on a
specific model of plausibility judgments as a catalyst for
changing how we think about connections between informa-
tion sources and associated explanations, as well as how to
evaluate those connections.
How do individuals think about the nature of
knowledge and knowing and how does that impact
their evaluations?
Educational researchers and psychologists, like philosophers
before them, have long been interested in fundamental ques-
tions about knowledge, such as How do we come to know?
Who has authority over knowledge? And even What is know-
ledge? (Hofer, 2016). Early work in epistemic cognition
focused on learners’ beliefs about knowledge. Did learners
believe knowledge was simple and certain and could be
obtained through authoritative sources? If so, how did this
impact their approach to learning? The scope of this work
included the structure of knowledge, but sources and justifi-
cation of knowledge were also foundational to the early
work in this area (Hofer, 2016).
We view the idea of epistemic beliefs as somewhat lim-
ited because when individuals’ beliefs about knowledge and
knowing are evoked, it is often without reflection or explicit
cognitive processing unless prompted by questions that ask
about their views (King & Kitchener, 1994). As Chinn and
Rinehart argue, “developing epistemic cognition is less a
matter of developing a few sophisticated beliefs and more a
matter of mastering a large and integrative network of
causal epistemic processes” (Chinn & Rinehart, 2016,
p. 471). According to Greene and colleagues, these practices
and aims are facets of epistemic cognition or “how people
acquire, understand, justify, change, and use knowledge in
formal and informal settings,” (Greene et al., 2016, p. 1).
The recent shift to new perspectives that draw more on
contemporary philosophy has brought the focus on add-
itional facets of epistemic cognition which have direct rele-
vance to source evaluation because they focus on how
people think and reason with their belief about knowledge
to evaluate sources and justify their knowledge. For example,
the AIR Model (Chinn & Rinehart, 2016) emphasizes epi-
stemic aims, ideals, and reliable processes for both generat-
ing and evaluating knowledge. Epistemic aims are
knowledge goals such as gaining knowledge or verifying
whether a claim is warranted. Knowledge obtained from dif-
ferent sources differs in value to the knower. So, for
example, if your goal (aim) is to find out if GMOs are safe
to eat, you can search for information online. However, if
you value the knowledge of your local organic farmer more
than what you might find online, you may not search for
that answer online at all but instead talk to the farmer at
the next farmer’s market2.
2 3
And the farmer’s information may be more accurate given the degree of
misinformation found online.
EDUCATIONAL PSYCHOLOGIST 123
Epistemic ideals are the criteria that one uses to evaluate
claims or evidence. Once you talk to your favorite organic
farmer, you can evaluate her claim by searching for more
information. One of us recently did exactly that. A baked
goods vender at the local farmer’s market claimed that sour-
dough bread was better for you than whole grain. The first
author went home and read several articles online and
found some support for the added nutritional benefits of
sourdough due to the fermentation process3. The criteria
used here to evaluate the baker’s claim is akin to a “trust
but verify” standard. Finally, the AIR model describes reli-
able processes, which are those that are more likely to result
in true rather than false claims. One such reliable process
could be checking multiple sources for “triangulation” of
claims and evidence about the wonders of sourdough bread.
Another reliable process would be checking to see if sources
have statistical evidence supporting the benefits of sour-
dough rather than just relying on testimonial evidence
(Chinn, Rinehart, & Buckland, 2014).
This brings us to the issue of “epistemic trust,” or how
individuals decide whether a source is providing reliable
knowledge. Individuals often do not have sufficient expertise
due to the bounded nature of their scientific knowledge and
therefore they must determine who to trust on these matters
(Bromme & Goldman, 2014). If your baker tells you about
the benefits of fermentation, or your doctor tells you about
the benefits of statins, what criteria do you use to put your
trust in these knowledge claims? Research on epistemic trust
shows that when evaluating whether to trust information
from a particular source, individuals consider the expertise,
integrity, and benevolence of the source when they are not
in the position to directly evaluate the evidence themselves
(Hendriks, Kienhues, & Bromme, 2016).
The recent work on epistemic cognition reveals useful
tools for evaluating scientific information encountered
online. If students and citizens are to be successful judges of
scientific information they find online and elsewhere, meta-
cognitive skills (e.g., monitoring certainty and planning to
verify information) and knowledge associated with epistemic
cognition will be a necessary addition to information literacy
instruction moving forward (Barzilai & Zohar, 2014, 2016).
However, first it is important to appreciate how reading sci-
entific information online differs from traditional print sour-
ces and imposes epistemic demands on the reader.
Locating and evaluating online sources of scientific infor-
mation is more akin to multiple document reading than sin-
gle text reading as individuals are likely to read multiple
articles when searching for information on vaccine or GMO
safety. Multiple document comprehension is already a more
complex, non-linear task than single document comprehen-
sion, and these challenges have been well documented
(Bråten, Britt, Strømsø, & Rouet, 2011; List & Alexander,
2017; Rouet & Britt, 2011). At a minimum there is extra
work the reader must do to compare and integrate informa-
tion while remembering which author made which claim.
We are not making any claim about the relative benefits of one bread over
the other, just for the benefits of fermentation.
124 G. M. SINATRA AND D. LOMBARDI
However, once this task moves to an online Internet search,
the process becomes even less linear, with readers following
hyperlinks to new and different sources, each one requiring
evaluation and verification steps that would exhaust the
time and attention of even the most diligent readers.
In regard to the challenges of sourcing online informa-
tion, Strømsø and Kammerer (2016) explain how very dif-
ferent the task of sourcing online information is from
sourcing traditional print resources (such as books from a
traditional brick and mortar library). One major difference
is that sources found online vary more widely in quality and
veracity than traditional library print sources and seldom do
they present information about the sources of their content
in transparent and clear ways. Therefore, as Strømsø and
Kammerer explain, “the responsibility for evaluating … sour-
ces is transferred from publishers to readers” (Strømsø &
Kammerer, 2016, p. 230).
The nature of the representation and perspective may
influence how individuals evaluate the validity of an infor-
mation source. In other words, individuals may have devel-
oped causal schemas around certain representations and
perspectives for evaluating source credibility (i.e., schemas
that specify reliable knowledge construction processes per
Chinn and Rinehart’s, 2016, AIR model). For example, some
individuals may consider a primary source from a scientific
journal to have greater credibility than a summary of
research presented over a cable network video clip (Bråten,
Braasch, Strømsø, & Ferguson, 2015; Lombardi & Sinatra,
2013). Others invalidate information because it conflicts
with the beliefs of a trusted group (Darner, 2019; Sinatra,
Kienhues, & Hofer, 2014). Such evaluations often occur via
implicit cognitive processes that are not reflective and pur-
poseful (Hughes, Barnes-Holmes, & Vahey, 2012; Smith, De
Houwer, & Nosek, 2013). For example, individuals may
evaluate sources based on heuristics, such as superficial
characteristics of the author (e.g., the author’s perceived
affiliation to a political party; Swire, Berinsky, Lewandowsky,
& Ecker, 2017), or the coherence of the information with
background knowledge. For example, readers’ confidence in
the source is directly related to their own perceived know-
ledge about a topic (Karmarkar & Tormala, 2010).
Information is also perceived to be more credible or accur-
ate simply if it is repeated. Repeated exposure to state-
ments—even false statements—provide an illusion of
accuracy (Pennycook, Cannon, & Rand, 2018).
There are dozens of biases that could impede reflective
evaluation of sources and evidence (for a review of cognitive
biases see, Kahneman, 2011). Specific cognitive biases that
tend to impede evaluation of scientific information have
been discussed elsewhere (Sinatra et al., 2014). Biases such
as proximal thinking, myside bias, the availability heuristic,
and confirmation bias have all been shown to impact rea-
soning. Confirmation bias, which describes the tendency of
individuals toward confirming their prior beliefs is of par-
ticularly concern for sourcing as it impacts how individuals
gather and interpret information, particularly for emotion-
ally charged issues or deeply held beliefs (Allen &
Coole, 2012).
Attitudes can also serve to bias source and content evalu-
ations (van Strien, Kammerer, Brand-Gruwel, & Boshuizen,
2016). For example, van Strien et al. (2016) showed that atti-
tudes influenced how much attention was allocated to online
sources of information, with greater attention devoted to
attitude consistent information. In our own work, we have
found similar results. For example, in one study, we found
that positively framed persuasive text tended to promote
greater learning gains especially when the controversial sci-
ence topic was aligned with prior attitudes (Thacker et al.,
2019). In another study, we found that source trustworthi-
ness was related to prior perceptions about climate change,
a topic about which individuals tend to hold valenced prior
attitudes (Lombardi, Seyranian, & Sinatra, 2014).
Source credibility is influenced by a variety of epistemic
factors including the expertise and trustworthiness of the
source (Bråten, Strømsø, & Salmeron, 2011). Fortunately,
education can address this challenge. For example, in a
recent study, Bråten et al. (2019) demonstrated that teacher
professional development in how to teach sourcing improves
students’ source evaluation skills. However, instruction
about sources of information alone may not be enough.
Accurate and precise evaluation of sources is certainly a crit-
ical skill in today’s society, but people should also consider
how well these sources align with knowledge claims,
particularly in situations where individuals are faced with
competing claims.
In previous work by Lombardi and colleagues on sourc-
ing, students’ evaluations of source validity were related to
their plausibility judgments about associated knowledge
claims (Lombardi et al., 2014). Plausibility is an epistemic
judgment about the potential truthfulness of a claim. In this
study, Lombardi et al. (2014) suggested that source credibil-
ity judgments impact the development of plausibility judg-
ments about scientific explanations about the climate change
phenomenon. Therefore, prompting students to make expli-
cit plausibility judgments about scientific and alternative
explanations may be additional step, above and beyond
sourcing, for evaluating information emerging online or
through social media. We believe that incorporating these
and other epistemic tools, such as plausibility judgments,
and specifically, reappraisal of plausibility judgments, would
be a value-added means of enhancing scientific information
literacy in the post-truth era.
Evaluation of explanations: Plausibility judgments
Plausibility is a tentative and provisional judgment about
the truthfulness of explanations. Scientists regularly consider
the plausibility of explanations about phenomena. For
example, almost all climate scientists find it plausible that
human activities are causing Earth’s current climate to
change, which is an explanation for the following phenom-
ena: (1) a steady and persistent rise in both global tempera-
tures [i.e., 1 degree Celsius (2 degrees Fahrenheit)] and sea
levels [13–20 cm (5–8 in)] above pre-industrial levels, and
(b) decline in global snow and land ice (Intergovernmental
Panel on Climate Change, 2014, 2019). Plausibility

judgments are not just made by scientists. Judges, lawyers,
and juries also consider the plausibility of explanations (e.g.,
the plausibility that a suspect committed a crime) (Shaw &
Porter, 2015). Expert mathematicians may consider the
plausibility that a proof is the most efficient solution
(Jeannotte & Kieran, 2017).
Plausibility is strongly linked to abductive inference (i.e.,
an inference leading to the best explanation from a set of
alternatives). In carefully examining historical notions of
abduction, Walton (2001) said that “an abductive inference
goes backward from a given conclusion [e.g., a scientific
explanation] to search for the premises [e.g., lines of evi-
dence] that the conclusion was based on” (p. 165). In
searching for evidence that may support or contradict an
explanation, individuals gauge the plausibility of explana-
tions (i.e., Does the explanation seem to be true?). Walton
(2001) further states that “plausible reasoning is especially
useful in cases where there is some unsettled issue or con-
troversy [in an individual’s mind], so that … both sides of
the issue are feasible” (p. 164). For example, although there
is a strong scientific consensus that humans are causing cur-
rent climate change, individuals may consider this consensus
to be uncertain and may believe that current climate change
is due to natural causes (e.g., through increased energy
received from the Sun). Plausible reasoning is best judged as
relative to the given evidence … “plausible reasoning is
most useful [when] there are two opposed theses” (p. 164).
Therefore, an explanation’s plausibility is probably gauged
comparing it to other alternatives, all which would be rela-
tivized to various lines of evidence that may or may not
support the explanations. The explanation would only be
accepted tentatively or provisionally based on how plausible
it is relative to other alternatives. If the explanation is the
most plausible, individuals will likely consider that to be the
best of all the alternative explanations.
Plausibility judgments may or may not involve more
refined types of thinking, such as probabilistic reasoning.
Some researchers suggest that people are Bayesian reasoners
when evaluating the connections between data and hypothe-
ses, but such probabilistic reasoning often involves binary
sources of data (e.g., a person’s mammogram is positive or
negative) and binary hypotheses (e.g., this person has breast
cancer or does not have breast cancer; see, for example, Zhu
& Gigerenzer, 2006). However, when evaluating broader and
more complex knowledge claims found in today’s society
(e.g., scientific explanations about phenomena, such as an
explanation about the causes of breast cancer), people’s
judgments may be provisional and qualitative, but not inher-
ently based on probabilistic reasoning (Nussbaum, 2011;
Rescher, 2012). The standard for plausible reasoning is
broad and may be more fluid than probability allows (P
olya,
1954a). When making plausibility judgments, people may
ignore data, and even whole lines of evidence (Collins &
Michalski, 1989), and also violate laws of probability (e.g.,
considering two alternative explanation about a phenom-
enon to be plausible; Lombardi et al., 2016).
Plausible reasoning also appears to be a default mode
that includes many types of reasoning, such as analogical
EDUCATIONAL PSYCHOLOGIST 125
and probabilistic reasoning (Collins & Michalski, 1989;
Friedman & Halpern, 2001). Under certain situations when
individuals actually incorporate probabilistic reasoning into
their judgments, plausible reasoning may appear to be quite
similar to Bayesian reasoning. But too often, individuals
likely make plausibility judgments as a “provisional gap filler
for an information void” that provisionally validates an
explanation “until something better comes along” (Rescher,
2012, p. 81). In this case, the plausibility judgment is self-
satisficing in a way that is coarse and non-probabilistic
(P
olya, 1954b). There is certainly merit in instruction that
helps students to reason probabilistically when situations
allow (e.g., when evaluating numerical data and scientific
hypotheses). However, instruction should also emphasize
plausible reasoning, which is more commonplace, and move
beyond simple source evaluation and coherence to evalu-
ation how well evidence supports alternative know-
ledge claims.
Individuals and groups therefore make judgments about
knowledge-based premises and conclusions (i.e., epistemic
judgments). Considering the plausibility of an explanation
about a phenomenon results in a judgment about its poten-
tial truthfulness, therefore making plausibility an epistemic
judgment. Other important epistemic judgments, such as
source validity, credibility, reliability, and truthfulness are
related to plausibility judgments, but are distinct (Lombardi
et al., 2014, 2016).
In their model of Plausibility Judgments in Conceptual
Change (PJCC), Lombardi et al. (2016) suggested a predict-
ive framework for evaluating novel explanations that people
may encounter (e.g., in the classroom, via television, and/or
over the Internet). Drawing upon Rescher’s (1976) notion of
plausible reasoning, the PJCC posited that individuals pre-
process validity of the information source based upon some
or all of the following five characteristics: “(a) corroborative
and coherent alignment of novel explanations with back-
ground knowledge, (b) complexity of the novel explanations,
(c) perceived degree of conjecture or uncertainty, (d) source
credibility perceptions, and (e) heuristic rules and biases”
(Lombardi et al., 2016, p. 46). Preprocessing is often based
on automatic impressions with lay people giving no real
thought to these influencing characteristics (e.g., ignoring a
source’s trustworthiness and/or expertise; Braasch & Bråten,
2017; Wineburg, 1991). For example, a source’s credibility
(e.g., the trustworthiness and/or expertise of the source)
may depend on corroborative and coherent alignment with
prior knowledge and beliefs, as well as message characteris-
tics such as perceived degree of conjecture or uncertainty.
Source judgments relate to the probity (i.e., the degree of
honesty or rightness) of evidence or data, and thus affect
the truthfulness or plausibility of an associated explanation
(Rescher, 1976). In our current post-truth era, where source
probity is largely subjective, individuals may readily judge
an explanation based on alternative (i.e., nonscientific) facts
to be plausible. Furthermore, even if source information is
accurate, it may not be well-aligned with an alternative
explanation. Therefore, reappraising plausibility judgments
through more explicit evaluations of the connections
126 G. M. SINATRA AND D. LOMBARDI
between sources of information and alternative, conflicting
claims may be warranted to extend and enhance
source evaluation.
Plausibility judgments, however, depend on more than
source evaluations. Individuals may fully comprehend lines
of scientific evidence and find that these evidences cohere
with scientific explanations but may still judge scientific
explanations to be implausible (Chinn & Brewer, 1993).
Lombardi et al. (2016) suggest that many factors come into
play when making plausibility judgments, such as epistemic
motives and dispositions, perceived value and utility, and
emotions about the novel explanation. In forming the
plausibility judgment, individuals may think about the
explanation purposefully (i.e., how well evidence supports
the novel explanation and how well the novel explanation
compared to other alternative explanations). For example,
individuals may understand that global temperatures have
risen over the past 100 years and trust that climatologists
have accurately measured these temperatures (i.e., the meas-
urements are reliable). Individuals may also know that
human transportation and industrial activities have resulted
in increasing emissions of carbon to the atmosphere. Both
are scientifically valid lines of evidence supporting human-
induced climate change. Yet, individuals may have also
heard nonscientific information saying that similar tempera-
ture trends have occurred at other times in Earth’s past.
Some people may discount the scientific evidence in light of
nonscientific information that is presented as factual, par-
ticularly if individuals are offered a complementary alterna-
tive claim (e.g., current climate change is part of a natural
climatic cycle on which human activities have virtually no
impact). This in turn, may render the scientific explanation
of human-induced climate change less plausible, or at least
equally plausible, to the nonscientific explanation of natur-
ally occurring climate change. Individuals may be motivated
toward accepting this nonscientific explanation because of
political party affiliation support of unregulated human
activities, which could increase the plausibility of this alter-
native explanation (Lombardi et al., 2016). Therefore, to
combat mis- and disinformation messaging in the post-truth
era, it is not only a matter of helping individuals understand
the validity of scientific evidence. It may also require the add-
itional step of facilitating more purposeful evaluations of the
connections between multiple lines of evidence and alterna-
tive explanations in such a way that shifts the judgment of sci-
entific explanations supported by the best evidence to be
more plausible. In short, extending sourcing instruction to
also facilitate individuals’ plausibility reappraisal of claims
toward the scientific may also be needed. Such instruction is
especially important to help individuals evaluate alternative
and contradictory explanations that emerge from multiple
lines of evidence. In other words, individuals could use source
credibility judgments to “cherry pick” a preferred explanation,
without thinking about the relative plausibility of various
alternative explanations.
The PJCC posits that individuals often make plausibility
judgments about novel explanations implicitly, without
much conscious thought. Such implicit thinking is a
characteristic of Type 1 cognitive processing, which Evans
and Stanovich (2013) call the autonomous mind. Type 1
processing requires little or no “controlled attention” and
only places “minimal demands on working memory
resources” (Evans & Stanovich, 2013, p. 236). In the PJCC,
this automatic processing is characterized by little or no
evaluation of evidence quality, potentially viewing misinfor-
mation as equally valid as scientifically collected data.
Furthermore, little or no evaluation would probably serve to
maintain individuals’ preexisting conceptions about phe-
nomenological explanations and in many cases, these could
be nonscientific conceptions (e.g., folk theories, Gelman &
Legare, 2011). According to the PJCC model (Lombardi
et al., 2016), individuals may maintain these preexisting con-
ceptions, in part, because these folk theories are plausible.
Alternatively, in situations where individuals do not have
well-formed ideas about a phenomenon, little or no evalu-
ation would also make the individual susceptible to non-
scientific explanations provided by a persuasive source (Dole
& Sinatra, 1998). This is all too common in this era of
“post-truth” and “fake news,” where empowered individuals
argue strongly and loudly that in many situations may make
their nonscientific explanations seem plausible
(Lewandowsky et al., 2017).
The PJCC, fortunately, explains how it is possible to
reappraise implicitly formed plausibility judgments.
Reappraisal would likely require explicit Type 2 cognitive
processing, which involves “cognitive decoupling” or the
ability “to prevent our representations of the real world
from becoming confused with representations of imaginary
situations” (Evans & Stanovich, 2013, p. 236). To decouple
cognitively, individuals must try to be open-minded by crit-
ically gauging the merits of alternative explanations by fit-
ness with various lines of evidence. Individuals should also
be motivated to decouple in order to pay attention to source
and explanation validity. And individuals must be willing to
dampen down nonproductive emotions, which could curtail
cognitive evaluation (e.g., anger and hopelessness; Lombardi
& Sinatra, 2013). However, engaging in more critical evalua-
tions about the connections between evidence and alterna-
tive explanations is a challenge for individuals. In learning
situations, engaging students in purposeful Type 2 process-
ing and cognitive decoupling to think scientifically may
require instructional scaffolding that facilitates such explicit
thought. Explicit and purposeful evaluation may occur when
individuals consider both the novel explanation and possible
alternative explanations through a greater degree of meta-
cognitive reflection (Kintsch, 1998; Pintrich, Marx, &
Boyle, 1993).
Lombardi and colleagues have been constructing and
classroom testing such instructional scaffolds through a ser-
ies of projects supported by the US National Science
Foundation (Lombardi, Bailey, Bickel, & Burrell, 2018;
Lombardi, Bickel, Bailey, & Burrell, 2018; Lombardi, Sinatra,
& Nussbaum, 2013). These scaffolds are called Model-
Evidence Link (MEL) diagrams, which were originally for-
mulated by a team of educational researchers at Rutgers
University (for an overview see, Chinn & Buckland, 2012).

The MEL supports the PJCC’s theoretical notion that cogni-
tive engagement increases through purposeful reappraisal
about the relative plausibility of alternative explanations
(Lombardi et al., 2016). Lombardi’s team specifically adapted
the MELs to assist students in making scientific evaluations
about the connections between multiple lines of scientific
evidence and alternative explanatory models about an
observed phenomenon to promote cognitive decoupling and
purposeful plausibility reappraisal.
Lombardi and colleagues (2018) tested the effectiveness
of the MEL activities in urban and suburban science class-
rooms throughout the US, involving hundreds of middle
and high school students. Quasi-experimental results show
that the MEL facilitated shifts in plausibility toward the sci-
entific and deepened student science knowledge.
Furthermore, fostering simultaneous evaluation of lines of
evidence with two alternative explanations was generally
more effective at promoting plausibility reappraisal and
knowledge construction than comparison activities where
students evaluated only one alternative (i.e., the scientific
alternative only). Finally, effect sizes were medium to large,
suggesting meaningful increases that, in plain language,
resulted in knowledge gains representing about a half a let-
ter grade increase (i.e., with the dosage of MEL instruction
of about only eight class days, a half letter grade increase
suggested a potent classroom learning activity).
In sum, theory and research on epistemic cognition in
general, and plausibility judgments more specifically, sug-
gests that critical evaluation of the connections between
sources of information and associated explanations could be
enhanced by extending other types of source evaluation
instruction (e.g., instruction the helps learners make cred-
ibility evaluations of information sources) in taking the add-
itional step of evaluating the plausibility of competing
knowledge claims. We turn to those methods now.
What is needed to improve individuals’ evaluations
of evidence and claims in the post-truth era?
Post-truth is a term that burst into political and popular cul-
ture during the 2016 Presidential election. Philosophers, psy-
chologists, and educators have been struggling to catch up
with this trend, to understand it, and offer solutions. What
problem does the post-truth phenomenon pose for evaluat-
ing scientific information? Although philosophers have
debated the nature of truth and knowledge for centuries and
will continue to do so, public understanding of science is
not possible without a degree of shared understanding.
Science does not have all the answers and is only as trust-
worthy as the humans who engage in it. However, across
time, hundreds of individual scientists, and thousands of
studies, some scientific “truths” do emerge. The Earth is a
sphere, all life on Earth is biologically related, and human
activity is a root cause of the current climate crisis, are
examples of scientific shared understandings.
For a long time in the US, science was taught as collec-
tion of facts. Now, guided by the Next Generation Science
Standards (NGSS Lead States, 2013), and with new
EDUCATIONAL PSYCHOLOGIST 127
approaches to teaching and learning science, many US stu-
dents are learning that science is a process, involving robust
methods for seeking and validating “truths” about the nat-
ural world that are useful to us as we attempt to solve press-
ing societal problems such as food shortages, water scarcity,
and disease prevention and treatment. Two of the scientific
practices featured in the NGSS call for students to partici-
pate in evaluating alternatives explanations based on their
connections to scientific evidence, and in doing so, to care-
fully scrutinized the validity of evidence and the plausibility
of explanations (National Research Council, 2012). This
practice extends the critical process of source evaluation by
also considering the additional step of explicitly gauging,
and potentially reappraising, the plausibility of explanations.
In light of today’s weaponization of information, it is
imperative that the research community help educational
practitioners prepare their students to effectively evaluate
connections between lines of evidence and alternative
explanations.
The abundance of scientific information students and
members of the people seek out online comes from a mixed
bag of sources which must be considered, weighed, and crit-
ically evaluated. We argued here that our current methods
of teaching sourcing and evaluation of online scientific
information are up against an arms race of escalating misin-
formation. And while sourcing techniques are improving all
the time, we feel that students and members of the general
public must be given a fuller suite of epistemic tools neces-
sary to their sourcing skills (i.e., by reappraising plausibility
judgments about explanations).
Critical evaluation of online information requires a
degree of epistemic vigilance that must be scaffolded. Based
on their recent meta-analysis of classroom sourcing inter-
ventions Brante and Strømsø (2018) stated that “There are
reasonable arguments in favor of exposing students to mul-
tiple documents that represent different perspectives during
their training on sourcing skills” (p. 794). Researchers also
recommended classroom sourcing tasks should help learners
navigate the “ins and outs of scientific processes” (Loyens &
Rikers, 2011, p. 362) and to do so would require “scaffolds
of different types (worksheets, computer applications) to
register the source features and connect them to the con-
tent” (Brante & Strømsø, 2018, p. 792). Thus, coordinating
effective evaluation of both sources of information—leading
to scientific judgments of trustworthiness and reliability—
with effective evaluation of alternative explanations—leading
to reasoned and reflective judgments of plausibility—is a
necessary skill for twenty-first century learners. However,
such coordination is difficult, requiring research and design
of instructional scaffolding that helps learners examine both
information source and associated explanations (Greene,
Hutchison, Costa, & Crompton, 2012; Li et al., 2016).
Specifically, we encourage the incorporation of instruc-
tional techniques such as the MEL instructional scaffolds
described earlier, with source evaluation instruction to sup-
port students’ evaluation of the validity of online informa-
tion (e.g., through scientific judgments about a source’s
credibility, and also, this evidence supports the plausibility
128 G. M. SINATRA AND D. LOMBARDI
of alternative explanations). The evidence-laden narrative
(ELN) (Darner, 2019) is a promising source instructional
tool that could be used in an instructional unit alongside
MELs or similar scaffolds. Within a topic narrative that
affirms their identities as learners and citizens, the ELN
includes discussion points and reflections that help counters
students’ denial of scientific evidence. In this way, the ELN
extends traditional source evaluation techniques (e.g., identi-
fying the source, triangulation of information from multiple
sources, assessing the authors’ expertise) to help learners to
stop and ask, is this credible and valid, and how do
I know? Certainly, the ELN and MEL are not the only scaf-
folds that help learners evaluate evidence and explanations.
For example, Nussbaum and Edwards (2011) found
that incorporating critical questions within argumentation-
vee-diagrams helped students to construct integrated argu-
ments based clearly on evidence. In summary, coordinating
evidence and explanations is a complex task and providing
instructional scaffold could support more effective
evaluations.
It has been recognized now for some time that the evalu-
ation of scientific information is not a cold and rationale
process but entails motivations and emotions that can both
foster and impede understanding (Dole & Sinatra, 1998;
Lombardi et al., 2016; Pintrich et al., 1993). Sourcing, how-
ever, is still too often taught as a cold and rational step by
step process (check the about page, consider the source’s
potential bias, find an alternative source). These are valuable
steps students should learn, but they omit consideration of
the information consumer’s own motivations for seeking the
information. Perhaps we want to believe there is really is a
cure to a friend’s recently diagnosed illness or perhaps we
fear that vaccinations could actually harm our loved ones.
We teach students to question the motivations and inten-
tions of the information source, but what about their own
motivations and intentions as they search? Students and
members of the public must be encouraged to stop, step
back, and evaluate: Did I want to believe vaping is safe
because my friends are doing it? Am I judging this informa-
tion about GMOs safety more critically than GMO alarmist
information because I want to find information that supports
my prior view that GMOs are harmful? Is this new instruc-
tional approach really the answer to my child’s learning dis-
ability or am I being swayed by this emotional argument
from a parent whose child has the same disability?
There are clear implications from the work reviewed here
for future research. First, despite strong research in the areas
of sourcing instruction, critical evaluation, and epistemic
cognition, there is little research that combines these per-
spectives into the same studies. Studies must be done to test
whether critical evaluation fostered through supportive
instructional scaffolds improves the detection of misinforma-
tion online. The work on reappraising plausibility judgments
should be incorporated into sourcing instructions and tested
for effectiveness. Interventions that add evaluations of the
relative plausibility of competing explanations should be
tested for enhancing and extending sourcing interventions
for their value added in the identification of “fake news”
about science.
Researchers also need to explore the role of motivations,
emotions, identity, and political affiliations in evaluation of
sources and explanations, and whether critical approaches
can promote self-questioning and reflection that helps indi-
viduals to not “believe everything that they think” as has
been suggested (Lombardi & Sinatra, 2018). Questioning our
own motivations, emotions, and prior positions we bring
into the evaluation of scientific information is a challenging
but necessary area for exploration in the battle against
misinformation.
Conclusions
Some have argued that we have entered a post-truth era in
which emotions and motivations are holding undue sway
over evaluations of objective information. Consumers of
online scientific information are challenged to evaluate the
sources of that information and make key decisions affecting
their health and wellbeing. We argued that the advances in
sourcing instruction has understandably struggled to keep
pace with the rapid explosion of mis- and disinformation,
and to keep pace, instruction should also include critical
evaluation about the connections between sources of infor-
mation and competing knowledge claims. In doing so, indi-
viduals may shift their plausibility judgments toward
explanations and solutions that equitably benefit society. We
have come to a point where reasoned evaluation of informa-
tion sources and associated knowledge claims is vital to
combat malinformation.
As we write this, it is 2019 and Hurricane Dorian is bear-
ing down on the Southeastern Coast of the USA and offi-
cials at the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric
Administration, who are responsible for supplying the public
with accurate information to make clear-eyed decisions
about personal safety, supported dissemination of misleading
information from the US president (i.e., that Alabama was
in harm’s way, when it very definitely was not). This is the
challenge of the post-truth era, helping citizens be prepared
to judge the validity of sources and the plausibility of
explanations to make sound judgments.
Despite these challenges, the post-truth era has prompted
greater understanding of the need for critical evaluation of
online information about scientific issues. Advances in epi-
stemic cognition are prompting a keener awareness of evalu-
ation strategies that may help consumers of scientific
information online. We argued that explicitly reappraising
plausibility judgments may be a crucial addition to evaluat-
ing the connections between sources of information and
knowledge claims. This may help the next person who reads
an article online about the benefits of sourdough bread or
the threat to their coastal community from sea level rise due
to climate change, or whether Alabama is in the path of a
hurricane or not to stop and ask, Is this explanation
plausible, and how do I know?

ORCID
Gale M. Sinatra http://orcid.org/0000-0002-6545-587X
Doug Lombardi http://orcid.org/0000-0002-4172-318X
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