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Reducing Racial Bias Through Perspective Change

A quasi-experiment was conducted with 11 white faculty members at Long Reach High School to determine if changing perspective could reduce racial bias. Participants completed the Harvard Implicit Association Test (IAT) before and after watching a video meant to alter their perspective. Their pre-and post-test IAT results were compared anonymously to see if their biases decreased after viewing the video. The researcher used a quasi-experiment and anonymous testing due to the sensitivity of studying racial bias.

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19 views2 pages

Reducing Racial Bias Through Perspective Change

A quasi-experiment was conducted with 11 white faculty members at Long Reach High School to determine if changing perspective could reduce racial bias. Participants completed the Harvard Implicit Association Test (IAT) before and after watching a video meant to alter their perspective. Their pre-and post-test IAT results were compared anonymously to see if their biases decreased after viewing the video. The researcher used a quasi-experiment and anonymous testing due to the sensitivity of studying racial bias.

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api-336565529
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© All Rights Reserved
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Data Collection and Methods

In order to identify if changing a persons perspective could reduce their racial bias, a

quasi-experiment was conducted. Eleven Long Reach High School faculty members voluntarily

partook in this experiment from April 7-21, 2017. All participants were White with nine being

females and two being males. The ages of participants varied between 20-60 years old. Three

participants fell in the age range of 20-30 years old, three participants fell in the age range of

31-40 years old, one participant fell in the age range of 41-50 years old, and four participants fell

in the age range of 51-60 years old.

The experiment was divided into several sections that participants could navigate through

on their own. In the first section, participants answered demographic questions regarding their

gender, age, and race. Next, participants were directed to the Harvard Implicit Association Test

(IAT) and were given specific instructions on which test to take (Race IAT). After completing

this test, participants self-reported their determined bias. A video meant to alter participants

perspective was shown to participants based on their IAT results. Once participants had finished

the video, they were again directed to take a Race IAT. After participants had completed this

post-test, they self-reported their new IAT results. To conclude, participants were asked to

answer a few additional questions about the accuracy of the IAT and the effect of the video.

Overall, the experiment took about 20-30 minutes to complete. During this time, the researcher

was not present, so all results were anonymous. Before beginning the experiment, all participants

filled out a human-consent form.

The researcher elected to do a quasi-experiment because of the specificity of her topic.

Little research has been done in this domain, so more data was needed to prove the correlation
between altering perspective and reducing bias. In addition, since race is a sensitive topic, the

researcher felt something that could be completed anonymously would be best. The questions the

researcher selected to use in her experiment were chosen to support and further explain the IAT

results. Ultimately, the researcher was looking to see how post-IAT results differed from

pre-IAT results and analyze why this change did or did not occur.

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