AI tutors vs. tenacious myths: Evidence from personalised dialogue interventions in education

Misconceptions in psychology and education persist despite clear contradictory evidence, resisting traditional correction methods. This study investigated whether personalised AI dialogue could effectively correct these stubborn beliefs. In a preregistered experiment (N = 375), participants holding strong psychology misconceptions engaged in one of three interventions: (1) personalised Misconception AI Dialogue targeting their specific misconception, (2) generic Textbook-style Refutation, or (3) Neutral AI Dialogue (control). Results showed that personalised Misconception AI Dialogue produced significantly larger immediate belief reductions compared to both Textbook Refutation and Neutral AI Dialogue. This advantage persisted at 10-day follow-up but diminished by 2 months, where the Misconception AI Dialogue and Textbook Refutation conditions converged while both remained superior to control. Both AI conditions generated significantly higher engagement and confidence than Textbook Refutation reading, demonstrating the motivational benefits of conversational interaction. These findings demonstrate that AI Dialogue can accelerate initial belief correction through personalised, interactive engagement that disrupts the cognitive processes maintaining misconceptions. However, the convergence of effects over time suggests brief interventions require reinforcement for lasting change. Future applications should integrate AI tutoring into structured educational programs with spaced reinforcement to sustain the initial advantages of personalised dialogue. • Personalised AI dialogue outperforms textbooks at correcting psychology myths • Initial advantages of AI dialogue diminished but persisted at 2 months • AI dialogues generate higher engagement and confidence than textbook reading • Correcting a specific misconception does not generalise to other unrelated myths