The work by Darley and Gross, as documented in their paper, A Hypothesis-Confirming Bias in Labeling Effects, gives a troubling example of how preconceptions can cause an educator not only to miss the needs of a student but to actually dismiss them, even without intending to do so. In their study, two groups of subjects were given information about a child; one group was told that the child was from a high socioeconomic background; the other was told she was from a lower-class background. Both groups were shown identical video of the child taking a test. When asked to rate her performance, the group who believed she was from a higher socioeconomic background rated her as performing above grade level. Those told that her background was from a low socioeconomic class rated her as performing below grade level. As Darley and Gross note, “Both groups cited evidence from the ability test to support their conflicting conclusions”.
The general term for this is confirmation bias and can be rephrased as “we see what we expect to see”.
The first two steps in Creating a Quality Learning Environment are 1) Establish initial respect and 2) Start with no prejudging. These two steps are deeply linked, as not prejudging is possibly the most important aspect of establishing respect. An environment without prejudgment helps encourage trusting relationships among students as well as between educator and student. If students think they’re being judged before they have an opportunity to perform in a new learning environment, it’s unlikely they’ll trust their teacher or be motivated to try and overcome negative prejudgment. Students who are negatively prejudged often withdraw either physically, emotionally, and/or socially, which makes it nearly impossible for meaningful learning to take place. (It’s important to note that even positive prejudgment can be demotivating to students!)
We know that teachers are most effective when they are able to meet their students where those students are. Obviously, that means we have to know where our students are cognitively, but socially/emotionally to some degree as well. What we know about a student can be critical information that helps us determine the best way to help that student: how and where to meet them. This is the promise of preassessing students. In order to preassess students, we gather the information that will best inform our teaching strategies vis-à-vis our students, doing this when a course begins. But because what we know—or think we know—about a student is also what forms the basis of prejudgment, we are necessarily responsible for consciously and intentionally ensuring that the information we have doesn’t affect our attitude and thus our actions towards students. In other words, we must be metacognitively aware of our own biases.
That’s really difficult! It’s sort of like trying to look at your glasses while you’re wearing them. And like with wearing glasses, we tend to be so accustomed to our biases that we’re usually not even aware we have them.
It is only possible to become aware of our own biases when we first accept that we do have them. We ALL do. In fact, one of the most common (and ironic) cognitive biases is the self-serving bias. When you have self-serving bias, you assume that you have much less bias than other people!
After accepting that we are prone to bias, we need to figure out how to become aware of our biases so that we can account for them, if not eradicate them entirely. While not specific to the classroom, a useful strategy for becoming aware of our biases is suggested by the Harvard Business Review in the article, Are You Aware of Your Biases: “Slow down and investigate your beliefs and assumptions”. Here are a few ways to do that as an educator:
When you have information about a student…
- Ensure you take the time to analyze that information.
- Consider where and how you got the information. How reliable is it?
- Ask: Is it factual information or is it the result of a value judgement?
- What does the information have to do with your own values?
- What does the information have to do with your own experiences.
- What expectations does that information suggest to you?
- What explanation do you have for the information…and could there be other explanations? (A familiar example is the teacher who assumes a quiet student has nothing to contribute but later learns that the student feels a sense of shame about their accent or a speech impediment.)
And here are some additional prompts, based on biases common to the classroom:
- Am I assuming what a student does is based on their personal or cultural traits (as opposed to the context)? [attribution error]
- Am I assuming I have enough information? [availability heuristic]
- Am I assuming that information from a single meeting/context is representative? [anchoring bias]
This is in no way a comprehensive list but, if used, will help to tease out assumptions and biases that often lead to prejudgment. If we want to create the kind of learning environment where respect is mutual and students thrive, we must meet students where they are. In order to do that, we have to know where they truly are—not where we think or wish they were. And getting to that depends on us being honestly aware of where we are first.
When we bring preconceptions and prejudgments to
Denna Hintze
our interaction with students, we dismiss their needs.
