Beliefs, evidence, and confirmation bias. Experimental study on pre-service teachers‘ engagement with evidence

• In Event: From Evidence to Action: Bridging Research and Practice in Educational Decision-Making (Research Use SIG Paper Session)

Abstract

Although engaging with evidence is part of the teaching profession, long-known barriers continue to impede teachers’ engagement. Selective judgment (subcomponent of confirmation bias) represents one such potential barrier. When summarizing related studies, (pre-service) teachers seem to devalue belief-incongruent evidence, but surprisingly update their beliefs in its direction. The present experimental study addresses this discrepancy by analyzing, among others, to what extent (in-)congruency of belief and evidence influences the evaluation of study results and belief updating regarding direction and certainty. Based on Bayesian analyses, results from N = 311 German pre-service teachers provide evidence that after reading belief-incongruent evidence, they evaluated the study quality as lower (d = -0.83), rather maintained their belief, but slightly decreased their certainty (d = -0.16).

Authors

• Kirstin Schmidt, Karlsruhe University of Education

• Florian Felix Alfons Kühlwein, Karlsruhe University of Education

• Samuel Merk, Karlsruhe University of Education