Ulrike Cress

Leibniz-Institut für Wissensmedien | KMRC · Knowledge Construction Lab

This article presents a framework model that defines knowledge building as a co-evolution of cognitive and social systems. Our model brings together Nonaka's knowledge-creating theory and Luhmann's systems theory. It is demonstrated how collaborative knowledge building may occur – in an ideal situation – within an organisation, when people interact...

Social media are increasingly being used for educational purposes. The first part of this article briefly reviews literature that reports on educational applications of social media tools. The second part discusses theories that may provide a basis for analyzing the processes that are relevant for individual learning and collective knowledge constr...

When individuals and masses of people interact on online platforms in a collaborative effort, they enter into a bidirectional relationship and exert mutual influence on each other. Individuals determine the characteristics of the mass of users, but the masses also shape the behavior of the individual users. We present our “co-evolution model of ind...

Recent advancements in artificial intelligence (AI) technologies, particularly in generative pre-trained transformer large language models, have significantly enhanced the capabilities of text-generative AI tools—a development that opens new avenues for human–AI collaboration across various domains. However, the dynamics of human interaction with A...

Digital technologies have transformed both the working practices of postgraduate students and the textual production for scholarly research communication. However, little is yet known about the role played by these technologies in dissertation writing. The aim of this study is to further the understanding of dissertation writing in the digital age...

Public opinion can have a decisive influence on conservation actions leading to a need to understand how public opinion is formed. In a survey with a representative sample of the German population, participants answered questions about foxes in two consecutive years. Different versions of a leaflet about foxes were distributed to 2448 participants...

Previous research has shown that learners’ subjective certainty in the assumed correctness of their false answers to a knowledge test increased after online learning. It is unclear, however, 1) whether this False Certainty Effect (FaCE) results from online learning per se, or 2) whether a FaCE results from people confusing their own knowledge with...

Objectives: Artificial intelligence (AI) is used in a variety of contexts in medicine. This involves the use of algorithms and software that analyze digital information to make diagnoses and suggest adapted therapies. It is unclear, however, what medical students know about AI in medicine, how they evaluate its application, and what they expect fro...

Generative Artificial Intelligence (AI) tools, such as ChatGPT, have received great attention from researchers, the media, and the public. They are gladly and frequently used for text production by many people. These tools have undeniable strengths but also weaknesses that must be addressed. In this squib we ask to what extent these tools can be em...

Objectives Artificial intelligence (AI) is used in a variety of contexts in medicine. This involves the use of algorithms and software that analyze digital information to make diagnoses and suggest adapted therapies. It is unclear, however, what medical students know about AI in medicine, how they evaluate its application, and what they expect from...

Background Efficient metacognitive monitoring, that is the monitoring of one’s own thought processes and specifically one’s state of knowledge, is essential for effective clinical reasoning. Knowing what one does and does not know is a competency that students of health professions need to develop. Students often tend to develop false certainty i...

National educational standards stress the importance of science and mathematics learning for today’s students. However, across disciplines, students frequently struggle to meet learning goals about core concepts like energy. Digital learning environments enhanced with artificial intelligence hold the promise to address this issue by providing indiv...

Education is not equally distributed across all people. It has often been found that students from low social class background have lower access to universities, less academic achievement and higher dropout rates compared with their peers (called the ‘achievement gap’). We investigate how the student social identity contributes to the emergence of...

Objective To participate in shared decision making (SDM), patients need to understand their options and develop trust in their own decision‐making abilities. Two experiments investigated the potential of decision aids (DAs) in preparing patients for SDM by raising awareness of preference‐sensitivity (Study 1) and showing possible personal motives f...

Objective This study examined the influence of physicians’ recommendations and gender on the decision‐making process in a preference‐sensitive situation. Methods N = 201 participants were put in a hypothetical scenario in which they suffered from a rupture of the anterior cruciate ligament (ACL). They received general information on two equally su...

We examine the role of argumentation in knowledge construction during computer-supported collaborative learning (CSCL). We describe the history and development of argumentation research from early precursors to the examination of argumentation in everyday life. We also present the development of tools and methods that have been applied for the empi...

Objective: This study examined the influence of physicians’ recommendations and gender on the decision-making process in a preference-sensitive situation. Methods: N = 201 participants were put in a hypothetical scenario in which they suffered from a rupture of the anterior cruciate ligament (ACL). They received general information on two equally s...

Hindsight bias—the tendency to overestimate in hindsight what one knew in foresight—is a robust and pervasive human error. A recent study with Wikipedia articles, however, found evidence for a hindsight bias only for disasters but not for any other event category (e.g., elections). Although this might suggest Wikipedia articles to be less biased th...

Objective: In order to participate in shared decision-making (SDM), patients need to understand their options and develop trust in their decision-making abilities. Two experiments investigated the potential of decision aids in preparing patients for SDM by raising awareness of preference-sensitivity (Study 1) or showing possible personal motives fo...

Soziale Medien spielen zunehmend auch im Bereich des Lernens eine wesentliche Rolle. Viele Lernende nutzen soziale Medien und Plattformen wie Wikipedia alltäglich zum informellen Alltagslernen. Allerdings werden auch in formellen Lernumgebungen häufig Elemente sozialer Medien wie Wikis und Blogs eingesetzt. Zu beachten ist, dass sozio-kognitive Ver...

As a consequence of increasing human-wildlife encounters, the associated potential for human-wildlife conflict rises. The dependency of conservation management actions on the acceptance or even the participation of people requires modern conservation strategies that take the human dimension of wildlife management into account. First of all, conserv...

The aim of this study is to identify linguistic categories which could be bias indicators in both English and Spanish versions of Wikipedia articles about international conflicts. In this sense, Appraisal analysis -particularly, engagement- is used to examine whether the articles are biased in favor of a group (in-group bias). In the present study,...

Research on digital learning environments has traditionally applied either an individual perspective or a social perspective to learning. Based on a literature review, we examined to what extent individual or social perspectives determined the learning outcome variables that researchers have used as measurements in existing studies. We analyzed pro...

Prior research from the field of science communication shows that, upon reading journalistic articles about novel scientific findings, readers who recognize the tentative nature of the findings rate the journalistic article that reports these findings as less credible. Apparently, readers’ appraisal is influenced by misconceptions about the relatio...

Making decisions based on their own evaluation of relevant information and beliefs is very challenging for patients. Many patients feel that they lack the knowledge to make a decision and expect a recommendation by their physician. We conducted an experimental study to examine the impact of physicians’ recommendations on the decision-making process...

Individuals tend to present their own group (the ingroup) in a systematically more favourable way (ingroup bias). By examining socially negotiated and publicly accessible Wikipedia articles about intergroup conflicts, we investigated ingroup bias at a collective level. Specifically, we compared articles about the same intergroup conflicts (e.g., th...

Background Epistemological beliefs (EBs) and therapeutic health concepts are two important factors of influence that affect how healthcare professionals process treatment-relevant information. A previous investigation compared physiotherapy students’ EBs and therapeutic health concepts with those of professionals in a cross-sectional study. That st...

Background Epistemological beliefs (EBs) and therapeutic health concepts are two important factors of influence that affect how healthcare professionals process treatment-relevant information. A previous investigation compared physiotherapy students’ EBs and therapeutic health concepts with those of professionals in a cross-sectional study. That st...

Background Epistemological beliefs (EBs) and therapeutic health concepts are two important factors of influence that affect how healthcare professionals process treatment-relevant information. A previous investigation compared physiotherapy students’ EBs and therapeutic health concepts with those of professionals in a cross-sectional study. That st...

From a health psychological perspective, being physically touched is highly relevant throughout people’s lives. Touch plays an important role in many contexts, such as in instructing movement exercises. Exercise videos have become a well-accepted format to support therapists in instructing movement exercises. In the study presented here we examined...

The online encyclopaedia Wikipedia has strict guidelines for ensuring the objectivity of its content and unbiased language of its articles. Wikipedia also provides articles on negative events such as disasters. Depending on the event, the Wikipedia community may express certain emotions when writing Wikipedia articles on those events. So far, it is...

The metaphor of the mental number line accounts for numerous empirical effects of spatial-numerical associations. In the present study, we aimed at investigating directional spatial-numerical associations reflected by SNARC-like digit-direction and sign-direction congruency effects as well as the sign-digit compatibility effect when 6th graders per...

In recent research, a systematic association of musical pitch with space has been described in the so-called Spatial-Pitch-Association-of-Response Codes-effect (SPARC). Typically, high pitch is associated with upper/right and low pitch with lower/left space. However, a theoretical classification of these associations regarding their experiential so...

Background Epistemological beliefs (EBs) and therapeutic health concepts are two important factors of influence that affect how healthcare professionals deal with treatment-relevant medical information. A previous investigation compared physiotherapy students’ EBs and therapeutic health concepts with those of professionals in a cross-sectional stud...

This chapter provides a reflection about the relation between networks, learning, and society. What does it mean if we consequently consider learning under a network approach and if we are aware that not just people constitute networks, but also knowledge artifacts and other informational resources are parts of networks. The chapter shows that scho...

This paper discusses the potential of ICT to support reflective learning for professionals. We aggregated data collected in 20 field studies with 12 different applications, involving a total of 321 participants. The applications addressed individual reflection as well as collaborative reflection. Such a systematic analysis with different applicatio...

International Convention of Psychological Science (ICPS). Paris, France.

The online encyclopedia Wikipedia has established strict guidelines for the objectivity of content. At the same time, Wikipedia includes articles on negative events, such as disasters or man-made attacks. These events can elicit strong emotions, which in turn may spill over into Wikipedia articles. Previous research has shown that Wikipedia article...

There is growing concern that online information searchers are overconfident and therefore largely search for information which reinforces their prior attitudes, blinded by confirmation bias. This study tests if this effect can be reduced in content aggregation platforms, when social tag clouds show popular topics among experts. We manipulated (1)...

Script of statistical analysis of rawdata conducted in R. (R)

Rawdata analysed for the current study. (CSV)

Blog post efficacy ratings in the pilot study. (DOCX)

Data from the pilot study. (CSV)

Describing variables in rawdata. (CSV)

General treatment efficacy ratings of antidepressants and psychotherapy. (DOCX)

Background: Many health care professionals are specialized in particular medical fields. Nevertheless, they often encounter patients with other indications for which they have only limited experience. In such situations it is helpful to consult colleagues who have specialized in the respective areas. The Internet provides the opportunity to connect...

The advent of the social web brought with it challenges and opportunities for research on learning and knowledge construction. Using the online-encyclopedia Wikipedia as an example, we discuss several methods that can be applied to analyze the dynamic nature of knowledge-related processes in mass collaboration environments. These methods can help i...

According to theories of embodied numerosity, processing of numerical magnitude is anchored in bodily experiences. In particular, spatial representations of number interact with movement in physical space, but it is still unclear whether the extent of the movement is relevant for this interaction. In this study, we compared spatial-numerical associ...

Background: Patients need to be educated about possible treatment choices in order to make informed medical decisions. As most patients are medical laypeople, they find it difficult to understand complex medical information sufficiently to feel confident about a decision. Multimedia interventions such as videos are increasingly used to supplement p...

BACKGROUND In order to make informed medical decisions, patients need to be educated about possible treatment choices. As most patients are medical laypeople, understanding complex medical information enough to actually feel confident about a decision is difficult. Multimedia interventions, such as videos, are increasingly used to supplement person...

The Web 2.0 enabled collaboration at an unprecedented level. In one of the flagships of mass collaboration – Wikipedia – a large number of authors socially negotiate the world’s largest compendium of knowledge. Several guidelines in Wikipedia restrict contributions to verifiable information from reliable sources in order to ensure recognized knowle...

After learning about an event, people often mistakenly believe to have predicted what happened all along (hindsight bias). However, what if what has happened is not known, but subject to conjecture? Could conjectures, in the absence of knowledge about the event, elicit the same bias and make people believe they “conjectured it all along”, too? We e...

Mobile workers perform tasks that require high concentration not only in their traditional office but also within environments that are typically related to leisure (e.g., in a park or in the living room). Because research has shown that surroundings affect cognitive processing, we assume that concentration is different in office versus in leisure...

Due to ubiquitous computing, knowledge workers do not only work in typical work-associated environments (e.g. the office) but also wherever it best suits their schedule or preferences (e.g. the park). In two experiments using laboratory and field methods, we compared decision making in work and non-work environments. We hypothesised that participan...

We investigated how learning outcomes are typically measured in empirical studies of digital learning environments in higher education. A database search of articles published in peer-reviewed journals between January 2000 and May 2017 resulted in n = 356 articles whose abstracts we screened for different types of dependent variables. We identified...

Wikipedia emphasizes the objectivity of content. Yet, Wikipedia articles also deal with negative events that potentially elicit intense emotions. Undesirable outcomes (e.g., earthquakes) are known to elicit sadness, while undesirable outcomes caused by others’ actions (e.g., terrorist attacks) are known to elicit anger. Internet users’ emotional re...

BACKGROUND In health-related, Web-based information search, people should select information in line with expert (vs nonexpert) information, independent of their prior attitudes and consequent confirmation bias. OBJECTIVE This study aimed to investigate confirmation bias in mental health–related information search, particularly (1) if high confide...

Background: In health-related, Web-based information search, people should select information in line with expert (vs nonexpert) information, independent of their prior attitudes and consequent confirmation bias. Objective: This study aimed to investigate confirmation bias in mental health-related information search, particularly (1) if high con...

New communication technologies and mobile devices have enabled knowledge workers to work independently of location and in more than one fixed environment (ubiquitous working). Previous research shows that physical environments can influence cognition and work performance. We manipulated environment (i.e., a virtual office as a typical work environm...

Students from low social-class background often struggle to adapt to university. Previous research shows that perceived incompatibility between social-class background identity and student identity is one reason, but little is known about the underlying causes of identity incompatibility. In three studies, we expected and found that students with l...

In this chapter we present cognitive and sociocultural approaches as two research traditions that represent the individual and the social sides of collective knowledge construction. We discuss theories from sociology which build a conceptual background for sociocultural considerations and describe the nature of emergent social processes. We also pr...

The communication of scientific information plays an increasingly important role for scientists and scientific institutions. This is especially true of institutions in the field of biodiversity and conservation research, since the transfer of research results to the public is a prerequisite for decision-making, and the success of conservation measu...

Social media enabled collaboration at unprecedented levels. And while research points to the benefits of mass collaboration, it has also revealed challenges and problems. Here we explore biases in collaboratively constructed knowledge. To this end, we compared two online encyclopedias: Wikipedia and the extreme right-wing Metapedia. Both urge users...

When people read medical research news on the Internet, they are not only confronted with information from the article itself but often also with comments written by other users about the article. Moreover, Internet users have the opportunity to write their own comments. In an experimental study we found that both the actual scientific tentativenes...

Hindsight bias is the mistaken belief that an outcome could have been foreseen once it is known. But what happens after learning about an event? Can reading biased media amplify hindsight distortions? And do people from different cultural backgrounds – with different cognitive thinking styles – draw equal conclusions from equal media reports? We re...

This study investigated whether conflictual information about novel medical findings in online-newspaper articles affected laypeople’s perception of tentativeness, their attitude toward, and fear of the medical procedure in question. For this purpose, we rated the user comments from all available online newspaper articles about Deep Brain Stimulati...

When people navigate through their informational environments, they often come across information that is discrepant from their knowledge or their attitudes, and consequently experience cognitive conflict. This chapter reviews findings and theories about cognitive conflicts from the learning sciences and from social psychology. While cognitive conf...

Searching for and dealing with health-related information on the Internet is a self-regulated process. Accordingly, how health-related information is selected, perceived, and produced by individuals in online informational environments may be affected by people’s motivation. In this chapter, we examine how motivated information processing influence...

Peer review is an integral part of science. Devised to ensure and enhance the quality of scientific work, it is a crucial step that influences the publication of papers, the provision of grants and, as a consequence, the career of scientists. In order to meet the challenges of this responsibility, a certain shared understanding of scientific qualit...

Medical laypeople frequently use forums on the Internet for communicating about various health-related topics. How they communicate with other users and which content they select to recommend to each other depends on personal as well as on social factors. In this study we examined two influencing factors in an experimental online forum where 61 wom...

When learners collaborate with each other in order to elaborate on a particular subject, this collaboration may be influenced by the differing perspectives the learners have on the topic. There has been very little research to date on how differing perspectives have an impact in collaboration situations in which people are supposed to form a shared...

Zusammenfassung. Im Internet können Laien nicht nur naturwissenschaftliche Informationen passiv rezipieren, sondern diese auch aktiv produzieren. Wie verarbeiten sie dabei Informationen, sofern sie unsicher und widersprüchlich sind? Während Forschungsarbeiten dazu vorliegen, wie Rezipienten mit fragilen und konflikthaften Informationen und Theorien...

• Wikipedia is quickly responding to new, negative events (e.g., terrorist attacks, earthquakes). • Events with undesirable outcomes which cannot be undone elicit sadness; in contrast, events with undesirable outcomes which are due to others‘ blameworthy actions elicit anger (Clore & Huntsinger, 2009; Clore & Schiller, 2016). • Emotions tend to inf...

Advances in scripting theory and advances in support for student-driven knowledge construction call for a reconsideration of long-standing issues of guidance, control, and agency. This symposium undertakes a fresh analysis based on the relations between two widely adopted approaches that may be poles apart but arguably viewed as variations within a...