Will Google destroy western democracy? Bias in policy problem solving

: Democracy requires students to choose policy positions based on evidence, yet confirmation bias prevents them from doing so. As a preliminary step in building a policy reasoning tutor, this study identifies where bias occurs during the search and analysis of evidence in a policy reasoning task. 60 university students played an on-line game in which they chose which of four policies would increase school performance. The between-subjects design compared a free search group who searched for evidence in google-like environment, to a sequential presentation group who read all available evidence, and manipulated whether the evidence confirmed or disconfirmed students’ prior beliefs. The study measured the impact on students’ evidence-based recommendations, their change in beliefs, and their recall of the evidence. Results showed that students did not cherry-pick evidence nor discount disconfirming evidence. However, students’ extreme confidence in their initial beliefs usually preve...

• Type: Conference
• Year: 2009
• Where: AIED
• Authors: Matthew W. Easterday, Vincent Aleven, Richard Scheines, Sharon M. Carver
• Keywords: AIED 2009, Artificial Intelligence, Available Evidence, Discount Disconfirming Evidence, Policy Reasoning