I have a Bachelor's degree in Education from 20 years ago. My degree didn't include a whole lot about academic research, how it's performed, how the education system was developed based on that research, and so on.

Twenty years ago, access to information and academic research wasn't nearly as widespread as it is today. Maybe understanding how research works didn't seem quite as important outside of academic circles.

But now I'm looking at AI in education, access to information, how our teaching methodologies have or have not evolved alongside that access, and questioning whether we're missing something.

If people had a basic understanding of the academic studies they can now easily access online, would that change how they interpret what they're reading?

There will always be people who intentionally misunderstand, cherry-pick information, or simply don't care. But there's also a group of people for whom a little understanding of how research is performed could be beneficial. Maybe it would help address some of the misinformation and disinformation that is so widespread today.

I'm finding myself going back now to learn some of that foundational knowledge so I can better understand what I'm looking at.

If the Internet has offered us access to information we didn't have in 2000, shouldn't we also be enabling people to understand what they're reading, including academic research articles?

We don't need to teach everyone everything about academic research, but a basic understanding of something that's so easily accessible in 2026 could make a difference to how science is interpreted in the larger public discourse.