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A Battle We Can(‘t) Win? Why Mythbusting in Education Feels Like a Futile Fight We Can’t Afford to Lose

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As in other fields, myths and misconceptions in education can act like invisible barriers, hindering effective practices in teaching and learning. These so-called zombie concepts persist despite evidence disproving them, often because they are deeply ingrained in institutional and cultural practices (Sinatra & Jacobson, 2019). Attempting to debunk these myths can feel like a futile effort—a pointless battle akin to fighting windmills. But is mythbusting in education truly useless and impossible?

Fact First: Mythbusting Is Necessary and Can Drive Evidence-informed Practices

In addition to for instance rigorous research, professional development and training, mythbusting (Cobley, 2011) is a powerful tool that fosters critical thinking and promotes evidence-informed (educational) practices (Lewandowsky et al., 2020). By challenging misconceptions, educators can improve teaching, enhance student learning, and contribute to their individual and collective professionalization.

Mythbusting Is a Futile Endeavor — A Myth About Mythbusting

A common belief exists that mythbusting (in education) is a waste of time—a never-ending game of Whack-A-Mole. For instance, can debunked myths reappear in new forms (i.e., shape-shifters) or new ones are easily created and quickly spread. In addition, educational myths are deeply rooted in social and institutional frameworks to be completely eradicated, making efforts to challenge them akin to Don Quixote’s legendary but hopeless fight against windmills (Saavedra, 2003).

Some Challenges of Challenging Zombie Concepts in Education

Protecting ourselves from misinformation is essential, yet trying to debunk every false claim can feel like an overwhelming and infinite game: The amount of energy needed to refute misinformation is an order of magnitude greater than that needed to produce it (Brandolini’s Law). Effective conceptual change requires what Sinatra et al. (2014, 134) call a “hat trick of change”: conceptual, attitudinal, and epistemic change. Achieving each type of change is challenging on its own, and accomplishing all three simultaneously is even more difficult (Sinatra & Jacobson, 2019).

Interactive Figure: https://app.Lumi.education/api/v1/run/cwMgua/embed

Furthermore, changing individual beliefs may still be insufficient to kill off these misbeliefs as “institutional and social-cultural forces also serve to perpetuate zombie concepts in formal, nonformal, and informal learning environments” (Sinatra & Jacobson, 2019, 17). In sum, these challenges can indeed feel discouraging and raise the questions: Do mythbusters really have a chance? Why should they fight?

So, What Can, and What Should Mythbusters Do? Some Strategies for Mythbusting

The belief that mythbusting is futile relies for instance on the fallacy of overgeneralization, assuming that because some myths are hard to dispel, all efforts are doomed to fail. It also falls prey to the false dilemma fallacy, presenting the situation as a choice between total success and complete failure, respectively engaging in mythbusting or not at all.

Despite the challenges, keeping silent is not an option for education researchers and mythbusters. As Siegel (2024a) notes, silence fuels the spiral of silence (Noelle-Neumann, 1993), allowing myths and misconceptions to persist unchallenged. In line with Sinatra and Jacobson (2019), I urge educators and education researchers to rise up and intellectually combat the education zombie concept apocalypse.

Here are some strategies to make mythbusting feel less futile:

  1. Choose Your Battles Wisely:
  • Mythbusting is not a panacea. The idea of eliminating all myths in a certain field through mythbusting is wishful thinking and, ironically, a myth about mythbusting itself.
  • Focus on those that, when debunked, will lead to significant positive changes. Ecker et al. (2024) agree that practitioners should deprioritize misinformation unlikely to cause harm and instead focus on potentially consequential misinformation. As Siegel (2024b) suggests with his mythbusting decision tree, a strategic approach is crucial.
  1. Try to Foster Mental Immunity
  • Engage in and encourage critical thinking to create a certain degree of “mental immunity” (Norman, 2021) against educational myths, fostering resilience in yourself as well as both educators and students.
  • This is the first step in building “herd immunity” (Basol et al., 2021, 3) against educational myths. Finding patterns in misinformation and exposing the techniques used to create and spread these myths are a viable approach.
  1. Target the Undecided Middle
  • Focus your debunking efforts on the broad majority—the undecided/moveable middle—rather than the extremes. People who are already informed do not require intervention, and those firmly entrenched in myths are often hard to reach with little chance of success. Engaging with extreme positions is time and effort-intensive.
  • At the same time avoid “preaching to the choir” respectively, avoid focusing solely on those who already follow the evidence.
  1. Be Persistent and Resilient
  • Persistence and resilience can help you in sustaining your prebunking and debunking efforts.
  • Recognize that mythbusting is a process, not a one-time event: As the saying goes, “You can’t eat the elephant all at once; you’ve got to do it one bite at a time.” The key is not to overwhelm yourself—choose a single (relevant) potential myth and tackle it thoroughly, for instance by using tools such as the education myths refutation canvas.

Conclusion

Mythbusting in education is far from a futile exercise. It is a challenging, however, necessary endeavor that, when approached strategically, can lead to more evidence-informed practices in teaching and learning. By dispelling the notion that mythbusting is useless, I want to empower (aspiring) mythbusters to tackle misconceptions head-on. Don’t give up! The process is important, and collective efforts can lead to meaningful change.

Feel free to join the conversation and share your thoughts in the comments below.

📚 References

  • Basol, M., Roozenbeek, J., Berriche, M., Uenal, F., McClanahan, W. P., & Linden, S. van der. (2021). Towards psychological herd immunity: Cross-cultural evidence for two prebunking interventions against COVID-19 misinformation. Big Data & Society, 8(1), 205395172110138. https://doi.org/10.1177/20539517211013868
  • Cobley, P. (2011). Mythbusting. Language Sciences, 33(4), 511–516. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.langsci.2011.04.006
  • Ecker, U., Roozenbeek, J., van der Linden, S., Tay, L. Q., Cook, J., Oreskes, N., & Lewandowsky, S. (2024). Misinformation poses a bigger threat to democracy than you might think. Nature, 630(8015), 29–32. https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-024-01587-3
  • Lewandowsky, S., Cook, J., Ecker, U. K. H., et al. (2020). The Debunking Handbook 2020. Available at https://sks.to/db2020.
  • Noelle-Neumann, E. (1993). The spiral of silence: Public opinion, our social skin. University of Chicago Press.
  • Norman, A. (2021). Mental immunity: Infectious ideas, mind parasites, and the search for a better way to think. HarperWave.
  • Saavedra, M. D. C. (2003). Don Quixote (J. Rutherford, Ed.; Rev Ed Edition). Penguin Classics.
  • Siegel, S. T. (2024a). Don’t Shoot the Education Mythbuster. Evidence-informed Sustainability Education (EvSusEd). https://evsused.hypotheses.org/971
  • Siegel, S. T. (2024b). When to Bust, and When Not to Bust, That is the Question – A Mythbusting Decision Tree. Evidence-informed Sustainability Education (EvSusEd). https://evsused.hypotheses.org/1197
  • Sinatra, G. M., Kienhues, D., & Hofer, B. K. (2014). Addressing challenges to public understanding of science: Epistemic cognition, motivated reasoning, and conceptual change. Educational Psychologist, 49(2), 123–138. https://doi.org/10.1080/00461520.2014.916216
  • Sinatra, G. M., & Jacobson, N. (2019). Zombie Concepts in Education: Why They Won’t Die and Why You Cannot Kill Them. In P. Kendeou, D. H. Robinson, & M. T. McCrudden (Eds.), Misinformation and fake news in education (7–27). Information Age Publishing, Inc.

OpenEdition suggests that you cite this post as follows:
Dr. Stefan T. Siegel (October 11, 2024). A Battle We Can(‘t) Win? Why Mythbusting in Education Feels Like a Futile Fight We Can’t Afford to Lose. Evidence-informed Sustainability Education (EvSusEd). Retrieved November 4, 2024 from https://evsused.hypotheses.org/1455


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