Effect of a critical thinking program on pedagogy students’ representation bias

Abstract

The effect of a critical thinking in cognitive biases aimed for pedagogy students is studied. Ninety-five students from two Chilean universities participated. The method consisted of a test with two probability tasks. A quasi-experimental design with pre and post-test was used, two experimental groups received training in critical thinking, one of them with explicit bias instruction, and it was contrasted with a control group. Data was analyzed through reliability and mean differences statistics. The results indicate differences between pre- and post-test in bias task 2; a significant difference between experimental group with bias training and control group was found. It is concluded that there is a difficulty to modify the cognitive biases and a need to work them explicitly.