The Professorship for Research on Learning and Instruction at ETH Zurich strives to discover effective, evidence-based ways to improve educational practice with an eye towards generalizable principles across content areas and issues of societal relevance. The group is looking for a PhD student to contribute to ongoing research on educational approaches to misinformation.
Project background Misinformation has severe negative effects on personal decision-making and societal integrity. In today's information environment, misinformation is rampant. Over the past years, the research group has investigated effects of trainings that help people recognize misleading data visualizations, thereby reducing their negative impact on information extraction (for example, see
Rho et al., 2025). More recently, the group has investigated how pedagogical interventions may protect people from misinformation (for example, see
Rau & Premo, 2025). The group now aims to broaden these efforts by investigating how pedagogical interventions that seek to (1) strengthen content knowledge and (2) misinformation detection skills interact. The goal is to enhance people's resilience towards misinformation while maintaining their ability to incorporate new trustworthy information into their knowledge schemas.
Job description - The goal of the PhD position is to conduct controlled experiments that investigate the impact of pedagogical interventions on misinformation resilience
- The dissertation should comprise a series of experiments that combine quantitative and qualitative methods
- The PhD student will receive guidance in carrying out their research and in publishing their findings in journals and in presenting them at conferences
- The start date is flexible
Profile - You should hold a master's degree in psychology (preferably with an emphasis Cognitive or Educational Psychology), Learning Sciences, Cognitive Science, or a related field
- You should have a strong understanding of experimental design and quantitative statistical analysis
- Prior research experience is preferred
- You should be highly motivated to conduct independent research on educational approaches to misinformation
- You must be a highly committed, inherently curious individual who is excited to work with an interdisciplinary team and demonstrates a strong motivation to learn
- Excellent knowledge of spoken and written English is required; additionally, fluency in written and spoken German is preferred
We offer - Excellent research infrastructure and supportive work conditions
- Support for developing your own research agenda and network
- Collaboration in a highly motivated and welcoming research team
- High level of autonomy
- Inspiring academic environment
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