Student Biases About the Middle East: Lessons from an Experiment. Issue 3 (3rd July 2019)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Çavdar, Gamze; Yasar, Yavuz; Fisk, Jonathan
• Is Part Of: Journal of political science education. Volume 15:Issue 3(2019)
• Page Start: 299
• Page End: 317
• Publication Date: 2019-07-03
• Subjects: Lectures -- Middle East and North Africa -- student bias; Political science -- Study and teaching (Higher); 320.0711
• DOI: 10.1080/15512169.2018.1456937
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 1551-2169

Abstract

ABSTRACT: Previous research has discussed the difficulty of teaching topics related to the Middle East. In our experience, one reason for this difficulty is that students are strongly biased with respect to these topics. This research attempts to systematically identify these biases through surveys and then test the effectiveness of targeted lectures that are specifically tailored to challenge the biases. We collected our data over 2 years through surveys conducted in three sections of Introduction to Comparative Politics. We measured the difference of bias in the prelecture and postlecture surveys by using the statistical method of randomized block design . Our findings demonstrate that students hold a significant degree of bias in four major categories and also have negative images about the region. We find that targeted lectures are effective in lowering both explicit and implicit bias, although a high degree of bias remains for some topics. Our findings are applicable to all courses that cover issues related to the Middle East.