Conspiracy theorists get a bad rap in popular culture, yet research has shown that most Americans believe conspiracy theories of some sort. Why then, if most of us believe conspiracies, do we generally think of conspiracy theorists as loony?   New research from the University of Illinois Chicago found that it’s because people are quite bad at identifying what is or isn’t a conspiracy theory when it’s something they believe. The finding held true whether people self-identified as being liberal or conservative. “Conspiracy blindness” became less pronounced when study participants took ..read more

Part of the Learning with the Machines feature on how UIC educators and researchers are exploring the impact of large language models  The ripples of language models go far beyond English classes and writing programs, affecting virtually any class where essays or written exams are part of the syllabus. So, when Erin Stapleton-Corcoran started seeing headlines about ChatGPT in late 2022 and tinkered with the technology, she knew immediately that it would be a paradigm shift for teaching.  “I guess what was so surprising is that it was so easy to use immediately. It was a very low barr ..read more

Does a commitment to one’s God facilitate altruistic behavior that benefits only members of the same religious group? Or does it extend to helping members of a different religion? University of Illinois Chicago social psychologist Michael Pasek and colleagues examined this question through field and online experiments involving more than 4,700 people from diverse ethnoreligious populations in three political and cultural contexts. Christians, Muslims, Hindus and Jews in the Middle East, Fiji and the United States were given the opportunity to share money with anonymous people from different re ..read more

The Ready Child, funded by the CME Group Foundation, is the latest installment of the College of Education’s early learning series. Because many preschools, elementary schools and families differ on the meaning of school readiness and the related skills and abilities a child should possess upon kindergarten entry, the University of Illinois Chicago College of Education has created a free access, online kindergarten readiness website for teachers, families and others. The recently launched website, The Ready Child, provides a shared definition of kindergarten readiness, as well as a website fu ..read more

University of Illinois Chicago professor Beth Richie is among a select group of 10 progressive academics to be named to the latest cohort of the Marguerite Casey Foundation’s Freedom Scholars, a group of scholars leading research and engaged in organizing that advances a racial and economic justice agenda. Beth Richie, professor and head of the criminology, law and justice and professor of Black studies. Photo: Joshua Clark/University of Illinois Chicago. Now in its third year, the Freedom Scholars honor provides a one-time award of $250,000 to each recipient to support their work. Richie, UIC ..read more

A new report published in the journal Scientific Reports sheds light on the current state of democracy in the United States. The research by a University of Illinois Chicago social psychologist and colleagues shows that both Democrats and Republicans personally value core democratic principles, such as free and fair elections, but severely underestimate opposing party members’ support for those same characteristics. Results of this biased underestimation are related to the willingness of individuals, particularly Republicans, to subvert democratic principles themselves, according to the resea ..read more

Hundreds of young children in the United States are expelled or suspended daily from child care and preschool classrooms at a rate nearly three times that of kindergarten through 12th-grade students. Despite recent efforts by policymakers to address what researchers describe as an almost two-decade crisis, disparities in who is expelled continue. Drawing on her research and interviews with hundreds of teachers, program administrators, parents and policymakers, a new book by University of Illinois Chicago early childhood researcher Kate Zinsser aims to bring context to the disciplinary decisio ..read more

During a 2016 campaign stop in Iowa, then-Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump pronounced, “I could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody, and I wouldn’t lose any voters, OK?” 5th Avenue, New York City. Photo by Rémi Thorel via Unsplash. Was he right? Or do some transgressions cross a line in the sand — points that, if crossed, cause voters to abandon their support? And if there are lines in the sand, do conservatives and liberals draw them in the same place? Does the strength of ideological identity affect where people draw the line? These sociopolitical issues ..read more

Darrin Collins, a UIC doctoral student and science teacher at Englewood STEM High School, has been part of the BEST program for the last four years. The University of Illinois Chicago College of Engineering and College of Education have received a $538,237 federal grant to continue a summer biomedical engineering program that has trained 27 Chicago Public Schools science teachers over the last five years.  The five-year grant from the National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering, part of the National Institutes of Health, was awarded in January to continue funding ..read more

The University of Illinois Chicago’s Center for Literacy is announcing a graduate fellowship program focused on reimagining and transforming community research methods using data and research in ways that meaningfully support the needs and interests of community members. The community-engaged research fellowship will shift from a university research model of taking information from the community without reciprocal support, to a model that partners with communities. The fellowship will serve as an interdisciplinary program for PhD students in the UIC College of Education seeking to develop the ..read more