Successful Dissertation Defense: How can laypersons be supported in evaluating conflicting information?

Researching scientific topics on the internet, one often encounters contradictory information due to developing science, lack of quality control of online media or even misinformation. Especially for laypersons who do not have access to the necessary prior knowledge, it is often difficult to understand and evaluate contradictory claims. 

In his dissertation, Steffen Gottschling, who is a research associate in the Multimodal Interaction lab at the IWM, investigated how laypersons can be supported in evaluating information and which role the perceived trustworthiness of sources plays in this process. The research results show: The more credible a source, the greater the agreement with its claims. "As there is a huge amount of conflicting information and misinformation circulating on the internet, source evaluation is an increasingly important skill for scientific literacy and communication," explained Steffen Gottschling after his successful dissertation defense on March 12, 2021.