The Influence of Anchoring on Teachers' Affective Commitment to Educational Change

• In Event: 15.034 - Achieving Educational Change: Understanding Daily Practice and Developing New Methodologies

Abstract

The present study determined whether teachers’ affective commitment to implement an educational change could be biased through anchoring (a specific prime). A counterbalanced experimental design with questionnaires was used to determine the effect of anchoring for both 21st century skill education and classroom differentiation. 55 teachers from Dutch secondary education participated and were randomly assigned the control group, the high anchoring or the low anchoring condition. It appeared that teachers in both anchoring conditions were less committed to address students 21st century skills. However, this effect was not found for classroom differentiation. Studying the effect of bias on teachers’ commitment towards educational change could be a fruitful new avenue determine why it is difficult to implement and sustain educational change.

Authors

• Mireille Hubers, University of Twente

• Judith ter Vrugte, University of Twente