Kendeou, colleagues awarded SSRC grant to build better toolkit to fight misinformation

Panayiota (Pani) Kendeou, Distinguished McKnight University Professor and Guy Bond Chair in Reading in the Department of Educational Psychology’s psychological foundations of education program, is part of a multidisciplinary, multinational team of misinformation experts awarded a 2022 Mercury Project Grant by the Social Science Research Council (SSRC) to “Build a Better Toolkit (for Fighting Misinformation).” Kendou will lead one of the intervention groups.

The large, collaborative project will compare misinformation interventions designed for practitioners to help people distinguish between true and false information and to reduce the spread of false information in online spaces. 

The researcher team will test the most effective interventions on English speaking YouTube. This process will allow the researchers to create a handbook for practitioners, detailing the relative strengths and weaknesses of each intervention and guiding their choices.

According to Professor Kendeou, “There will never be just one solution to fighting misinformation. We hope to help practitioners understand which interventions will be most effective for their current situation.”