EFFECTS OF ACCURACY AND PLAUSIBILITY IN PREDICTING RESULTS OF RESEARCH FINDINGS ON TEACHING

The status of research in education and in the social sciences general ly suffers in comparison with the natural or physical sciences. One re ason for this is that social science research findings are often regar ded as obvious, and hence trivial. In this study, 220 students of educ ational psychology, including a sample of student-teachers and experie nced teachers, judged the predictability of 16 research findings conce rning teaching in classrooms. Half of the research findings were based on actual findings in the research literature and half of the finding s were false. Each finding was presented alone or was accompanied by a plausible statement of support. Participants were as likely to predic t false findings as to predict actual findings. The addition of a supp orting explanation tended to increase the likelihood of agreement with the research finding. The responses of teachers were not markedly dif ferent from those of non-teachers. These results indicate that the fee ling of obviousness is untrustworthy, and is thus not a legitimate bas is for judging the merits of research in education.