Evidence‐based reasoning: Results from an intervention

Abstract In two studies, we develop and evaluate an intervention focused on one significant challenge that undergraduate students have with evidence‐based reasoning—reasoning about different evidence types. Our Evidence‐Based Reasoning intervention teaches students about three common evidence types—comparative, correlational, and causal—often discussed in the popular press. In Study 1, using a within‐subjects design, we find students' performance on an objective evidence‐based reasoning (OEBR) measure to be significantly improved post‐intervention (Cohen's d = 2.05). In Study 2, we add two open‐ended measures to examine the effects of the intervention on students' evaluations of evidence‐based conclusions. We again find students to perform significantly better on the OEBR measure (Cohen's d = 0.96), as well as on two open‐ended conclusion evaluation tasks (Cohen's d = 0.97 and d = 0.69). Moreover, we find some of these benefits to persist on a delayed post‐test, administered three weeks after intervention.