Fisher, Goddu and Keil Study - HL (cognitive)

Question 1

Fisher, Goddu and Keil Study - HL (cognitive)

Aim

Answer 1

To test whether searching the internet for an explanation leads to higher subsequent ratings of the estimation of one’s own ability to answer entirely different questions in unrelated domains (ie. Does finding an answer on Google make us overestimate our ability to answer questions?)

Question 2

Fisher, Goddu and Keil Study - HL (cognitive)

Procedure

Answer 2

• Participants: Approx 200 adults through Amazon’s Mechanical Turk (a crowd-sourcing platform)
• Phase 1 (Induction Phase): Two conditions:
  
  • Internet condition: Use internet to confirm details of the explanation to four questions, Include URL that had the best explanation. Rate your ability to offer an explanation
  • No Internet condition: Rate your ability to answer four questions without any outside sources
• Phase 2: Self-assessment Phase
  
  • Both groups had the same questions
  • Had to rate their own ability to answer questions in 6 unrelated domains in a Likert scale of 1 (very poorly) to 7 (very well)

Question 3

Fisher, Goddu and Keil Study - HL (cognitive)

Findings

Answer 3

• Internet condition group rated themselves significantly higher than the no internet condition on their ability to answer the unrelated questions across all six domains
• Supports the idea that use of internet can inflate our self-estimates of knowledge (memory)
• Can be both positive/negative

Question 4

Fisher, Goddu and Keil Study - HL (cognitive)

Limitations

Answer 4

• Internal validity
  
  • group who couldn’t use the internet in the induction phase may have had their confidence decreased, impacting their self-rating in the second phase
  • Participants in the internet condition spent more time in induction phase, perhaps length of time had an influence in their self-rating
• Sampling bias
  
  • Participants who use the online crowd-sourcing platform may be more reliant on the internet than the “average person”

Question 5

Fisher, Goddu and Keil Study - HL (cognitive)

Ethical Considerations

Answer 5

• informed consent was obtained

Question 6

Fisher, Goddu and Keil Study - HL (cognitive)

Research Method

Answer 6

Experiment