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A High School Teacher’s Commitment to Change: the Influence of Bias caused by Anchoring

Boerkamp, Fenna (2019) A High School Teacher’s Commitment to Change: the Influence of Bias caused by Anchoring.

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Abstract:Developing a high school teacher’s commitment to change is of importance in order to reach educational change. It is still commonly believed that this process is accompanied by a rational decision-making process, but research suggests otherwise. This experiment, therefore, aimed at proving the effect of bias caused by anchoring on high school teachers’ (affective, normative and continuance) commitment to change. Differences in gender and work experience were investigated as well. A total of 195 high school teachers in the Netherlands participated in the experiment. The teachers were assigned to three different conditions (no anchor, an encouraging anchor or a discouraging anchor) to possibly manipulate the outcomes. The results indicated that high school teachers that were presented with an encouraging anchor scored higher on normative commitment to change than teachers that were presented with a discouraging anchor. Furthermore, high school teachers with more than three years of work experience in the control condition scored higher on continuance commitment to change than teachers with less than or three years of work experience in the control condition. Even though fewer effects of anchoring were found than expected, the anchors in combination with the scenario might have elicited an unconscious normative influence. Thus, the results do provide evidence to suggest that high school teachers might not be as rational in their decision-making processes towards change as is still commonly assumed. Suggested is to take the role of familiarity, knowledge or expertise with the proposed changes into account when conducting future research. Keywords: change management, affective, normative, continuance, commitment to change, bias, anchoring, high school teacher, gender, work experience
Item Type:Essay (Bachelor)
Faculty:BMS: Behavioural, Management and Social Sciences
Subject:70 social sciences in general, 77 psychology, 81 education, teaching
Programme:Psychology BSc (56604)
Link to this item:https://purl.utwente.nl/essays/77145
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