New CERL Research Highlights Rise of Misinformation in the Civics Classroom

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Effectively Combating Misinformation Requires Researcher-Practitioner Collaboration

CERL Director Dr. Diana Owen’s article on “The challenge of misinformation in the civics classroom,” published in the Journal of Applied Communication Research on Jan. 29 underscores the importance of collaboration between researchers and civic education practitioners to effectively counter misinformation in K–12 education. Misinformation about government and politics has become a pervasive challenge in elementary and secondary schools over the past two decades. Teachers are tasked with equipping students with the skills to identify and counter misinformation encountered daily from an ever-increasing number of sources, including social media and AI-generated content. There is a need for researchers and practitioners working together to develop effective pedagogies and quality curriculum interventions to address the problem.

The Civic Education Research Lab (CERL) at Georgetown University collaborates with civic education organizations to provide evidence that they can use to develop and implement teacher professional development and curricular interventions for combating misinformation. This design-based implementation approach gives agency to all participants in the process and enhances the potential for best instructional practices to mitigate misinformation to emerge. Read more about CERL’s partnerships with organizations such as the Center for Civic Education and More Like US, which are implementing and evaluating programs designed to reduce political misperceptions and polarization among young people, in the Journal of Applied Communication Research.