Edit 2019/Wikipedia editing in Introductory Psychology: Teaching students online research skills while targeting gender bias: Submissions:2019/“Wikipedians are born, not made” – applying the learnings from a 10-year-old research paper after all

This submission has been accepted for WikiConference North America 2019.

Constructionism as a pedagogical approach emphasizes the value of creative work in building knowledge structures (Harel & Papert, 1991). Wikipedia editing assignments exemplify this perspective by offering numerous opportunities for students to acquire both academic content knowledge and skills in communicating information to the general public. As part of Wiki Education’s 2016 Year of Science initiative, our team launched WikiProject: Women in Psychology (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiProject_Women_in_Psychology) to address the gender gap in Wikipedia biographies of women in Psychological Science. We present outcomes assessment data from four semesters of Introductory Psychology classes taught at a large, urban public university, where students working individually or with classmates produced more than 90 new Wikipedia biographies. Over successive semesters, we added various scaffolds to support students’ writing skills. We started by creating a template (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Celizas/BioTemplate) for a biographical article, which we uploaded to each student sandbox with clear instructions. We subsequently developed online homework assignments with Content Acquisition Podcasts (CAPs; Kennedy et al., 2016), i.e., short, narrated PowerPoint presentations, that introduced students to scientific abstracts and their argumentative structure, provided tips for unpacking jargon using Wikipedia, and included exercises to strengthen students’ paraphrasing skills. Pre-/post-test surveys indicated the value of Wikipedia editing as a transformative teaching tool. Students initially expressed confusion about Wikipedia’s editing process and concerns regarding Wikipedia’s lack of credibility. Wikipedia editing improved students’ online research habits, leading to increased reliance on library resources and decreased reliance on Google for academic work. After editing, students expressed more positive attitudes towards Wikipedia and indicated their appreciation of its sourcing requirements and the role of outside editors in vetting content. Students exhibited the IKEA Effect (Norton, Mochon, & Ariely, 2012), where the process of construction enhances students’ valuation of their self-made product. That is, after putting in the effort to create a new article, students expressed greater appreciation for Wikipedia and had more positive attitudes towards its content. Over and above these benefits, the CAPs were effective in reducing plagiarism of information from journal article abstracts. Taken together, the findings highlight the value of including Wikipedia editing in Introductory Psychology, as first-year college students need ample opportunities to practice writing, fact-checking, and information sourcing skills.