Research on the Perception Gap Lesson

Posted in CERL Research Reviews

Citation: Owen, Diana, 2024. “Research on the Perception Gap Lesson,” Paper prepared for presentation on the Political Participation and Civic Engagement panel at the Southern Political Science Association Annual Conference, San Juan, Puerto Rico, January 8-11, 2025.

Research Brief

The Civic Education Research Lab (CERL) analyzed data from a pilot study of the Perception Gap lesson developed by More Like Us – a non-profit organization whose mission is to “correct dangerous political misperceptions at scale by targeting the information environment, starting with Gen Z”. The Perception Gap lesson, entitled “Correcting Division Misperceptions,” is a secondary school lesson intervention that seeks to narrow the perception gap or “the extent to which Democrats and Republicans think they disagree with the amount they actually disagree” (Yudkin, Hawkins, and Dixon, 2019: 6).

The goal of the lesson is to increase students’ understanding of partisanship and spotlight ideological commonalities that emerge among Americans across the aisle. The lesson plan includes a warm-up activity where students reflect on their perceptions of how Democrats and Republicans view the issue of immigration; a short video that introduces the Perception Gap by revealing where the average American voter from either party actually stands on the issue; and a class discussion that centers research which found that Americans tend to hyperbolize disparities between political parties.

The pilot study took place in the Spring of 2024 across three high schools in the Washington, D.C. area. Three different teachers received the Perception Gap lesson materials and were charged with instructing fifty-eight students across four different classes (one teacher was responsible for two classes). To measure how effective the lesson was at narrowing the Perception Gap, CERL looked at the teacher surveys and student exit tickets collected at the end of the lesson. The teachers provided qualitative data with a focus on the lessons’ content, implementation, and perceived student outcomes. The student exit tickets included a mix of open and closed-ended survey questions that gathered their opinions on the lesson and evaluated their understanding and empathy towards others’ politics.

The feedback from both teachers and students was overwhelmingly positive. Teachers shared that the lesson aligned with the goals set by their school and the district, and was consistent with the pedagogy of Decision Education which encourages students to analyze quantitative data when making decisions. They also stated that they believed their students found the lesson easy to follow and engaging. Student data supports the teachers’ insights as about 75% of the students reported the lesson plan was clear and easy to follow, with 31% agreeing strongly. While one teacher mentioned that the lesson’s influence on students’ civic capacity might be fleeting, most teachers were convinced the lesson would benefit the students’ civic knowledge and capacity in the long run. This notion is further supported, as 81% of students indicated the lesson enhanced their understanding of Americans’ political views and behavior and 70% noted the lesson motivated them to be more empathetic toward people with whom they disagree. The lesson’s success was also captured in the students’ open-ended responses where they demonstrated the ability to define, connect, and pose meaningful questions around key concepts like the perception gap, polarization, and partisan stereotyping.

Teachers recommended spending more time contextualizing American political parties and their policy agendas as well as incorporating more active learning strategies into the lesson. Students suggested leaving more time for them to discuss their perspectives and examine data trends. Students also requested that more emphasis be placed on the relationship
between social media and polarization due to its relevance in their daily lives.

For future studies on the Perception Gap Lesson, More Like US and CERL will collect more information on how the teachers approached preparing for and delivering the lesson by having them note any pedagogies or instructional approaches they used. They also plan to implement a pretest/posttest design to better assess student outcomes by comparing baseline data to their exit ticket responses. Lastly, the survey questions will be refined to better measure the students’ knowledge acquisition and dispositions pertaining to the Perception Gap.

Though the pilot study is small in scale, the findings underscore how civic education has the potential to serve as a powerful antidote to partisan misperceptions and political polarization – a trend CERL plans on continuing to study.

Jamie Joseph, Research Specialist, CERL

Reference

Yudkin, Daniel, Stephen Hawkins, and Tim Dixon. 2019. “The Perception Gap: How False Impressions Are Pulling Americans Apart.” More in Common. Research Report, June.