Dr. Daniel Pimentel was selected to receive the NARST 2025 Outstanding Doctoral Research Award (ODRA) for his dissertation titled “Learning to Evaluate Sources of Science (Mis)Information: A Mixed Methods Study of High School Students’ Scientific Online Reasoning”. 

This honor recognizes that Dr. Pimentel’s dissertation was judged by his NARST colleagues on the ODRA Selection Subcommittee to have the greatest merit and significance in the field of Science Education from among all dissertations nominated for the award this year. Dr. Pimentel completed his dissertation at Stanford University on August 3, 2023 under the direction of Drs. Janet Carlson and Bryan Brown. 

In today’s digital world, students often turn to the internet for information on issues like COVID-19 and climate change, but struggle to evaluate credible sources. To address this problem, Dr. Pimentel introduced "scientific online reasoning" as the ability to assess the credibility of online scientific claims. Working with a high school teacher, Dr. Pimentel created an intervention to teach ninth-grade biology students how to evaluate scientific sources. The intervention focused on evaluating conflicts of interest, relevant expertise, and alignment with scientific consensus, along with online reasoning strategies such as lateral reading, click restraint, and wise use of Wikipedia. Using a mixed-methods approach, Dr. Pimentel found that students improved in their ability to use evaluation criteria and online reasoning strategies after the intervention. These results suggest that teaching scientific reasoning and criteria related to the social processes of science can help students better evaluate online (mis)information.  This work aligns with broader efforts in science education to enhance students' digital literacy and critical thinking skills, equipping them to navigate an increasingly complex information landscape.