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Drawing on theories of cultural cognition and empirical work showing that even a single salient statistic can shift civic judgment, the paper proposes an instructional intervention to help learners distinguish representative from misleading statistics and apply critical reasoning in classroom settings.",{"@graph":14,"@context":72},[15,34,55],{"@type":16,"itemListElement":17},"BreadcrumbList",[18,23,27,31],{"item":19,"name":20,"@type":21,"position":22},"https://docshare.wps.com","Home","ListItem",1,{"item":24,"name":25,"@type":21,"position":26},"https://docshare.wps.com/document/","Document",2,{"item":28,"name":29,"@type":21,"position":30},"https://docshare.wps.com/document/research-report/","Research & Report",3,{"item":32,"name":10,"@type":21,"position":33},"https://docshare.wps.com/document/designing-an-intervention-to-promote-critical-thinking-about-statistics-in-the-general-public-paper/594771/",4,{"url":32,"name":10,"@type":35,"image":36,"author":41,"headline":10,"publisher":44,"fileFormat":47,"inLanguage":8,"description":12,"dateModified":48,"datePublished":49,"encodingFormat":47,"isAccessibleForFree":50,"interactionStatistic":51},"DigitalDocument",{"url":37,"@type":38,"width":39,"height":40},"https://docshare.wps.com/thumbnails/designing-an-intervention-to-promote-critical-thinking-about-statistics-in-the-general-public-paper/594771.png","ImageObject",300,407,{"name":42,"@type":43},"Ben ","Person",{"url":19,"name":45,"@type":46},"DocShare","Organization","application/pdf","2026-10-21","2026-10-15",true,{"@type":52,"interactionType":53,"userInteractionCount":30},"InteractionCounter",{"@type":54},"ViewAction",{"@type":56,"mainEntity":57},"FAQPage",[58,64,68],{"name":59,"@type":60,"acceptedAnswer":61},"Why can a single statistic be misleading in public debates?","Question",{"text":62,"@type":63},"Because how people interpret statistics can be shaped by classification choices and existing beliefs. A seemingly objective figure may hide misleading assumptions about which groups are counted.","Answer",{"name":65,"@type":60,"acceptedAnswer":66},"What does cultural cognition suggest about how people respond to statistical evidence?",{"text":67,"@type":63},"People often evaluate empirical evidence through the lens of their cultural and political values. They may accept confirming evidence and scrutinize disconfirming evidence more strictly.",{"name":69,"@type":60,"acceptedAnswer":70},"How can an intervention support critical thinking about statistics?",{"text":71,"@type":63},"By fostering the ability to distinguish representative from misleading numbers. The intervention is informed by research on how reasoning about statistics and classroom techniques can help learners revise beliefs based on critical evaluation.","https://schema.org",{"og:url":32,"og:type":74,"og:title":10,"og:site_name":45,"og:description":12},"article",{"robots":76,"canonical":32},"index,follow",{"doc_id":78,"site_id":7},594771,1792191763,{"code":4,"msg":81,"data":82},"success",[83,87,91,95,100,105,110,114,119,122,126],{"id":22,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":25,"category_name":84,"show_sort_weight":85,"slug":86},"Story & Novel",90,"story-novel",{"id":26,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":25,"category_name":88,"show_sort_weight":89,"slug":90},"Literature",80,"literature",{"id":33,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":25,"category_name":92,"show_sort_weight":93,"slug":94},"Exam",70,"exam",{"id":96,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":25,"category_name":97,"show_sort_weight":98,"slug":99},5,"Comic",60,"comic",{"id":101,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":25,"category_name":102,"show_sort_weight":103,"slug":104},6,"Technology",50,"technology",{"id":106,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":25,"category_name":107,"show_sort_weight":108,"slug":109},7,"Healthcare",40,"healthcare",{"id":111,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":25,"category_name":29,"show_sort_weight":112,"slug":113},8,30,"research-report",{"id":115,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":25,"category_name":116,"show_sort_weight":117,"slug":118},9,"Religion & Spirituality",20,"religion-spirituality",{"id":117,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":25,"category_name":120,"show_sort_weight":117,"slug":121},"World Cup","world-cup",{"id":123,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":25,"category_name":124,"show_sort_weight":123,"slug":125},10,"Lifestyle","lifestyle",{"id":127,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":25,"category_name":128,"show_sort_weight":96,"slug":129},19,"General","general",{"code":4,"msg":81,"data":131},{"doc_id":78,"user_id":132,"nickname":42,"user_avatar":133,"doc_module":4,"category_id":111,"category_name":29,"doc_title":10,"doc_description":12,"doc_content":134,"file_id":135,"file_url":136,"file_type":137,"file_size":138,"view_count":30,"is_deleted":4,"is_public":22,"is_downloadable":22,"audit_status":22,"page_count":111,"language":139,"language_code":8,"site_id":7,"html_lang":8,"table_of_contents":140,"faqs":141,"seo_title":142,"seo_description":12,"update_tm":143,"read_time":117},2336478951081,"https://ap-avatar.wpscdn.com/davatar_276721f389ce27ea32af1340a28f341c","UC Berkeley  \nBerkeley Review of Education  \nTitle  \nDesigning an Intervention to Promote Critical Thinking About Statistics in the General Public  \nPermalink  \n[https://escholarship.org/uc/item/73h8r5vx](https://escholarship.org/uc/item/73h8r5vx)  \nJournal  \nBerkeley Review of Education, 7(1)  \nAuthor  \nVelautham, Leela  \nPublication Date  \n2017-01-01  \n[eScholarship.org](eScholarship.org) Powered by the California Digital Library  \nUniversity of California  \nAvailable online at [http://Escholarship.org/uc/ucbgse_bre](http://Escholarship.org/uc/ucbgse_bre)  \nDesigning an Intervention to Promote Critical Thinking About Statistics in the General Public  \nLeela Velautham 1  \nUniversity of California, Berkeley  \n“One in five American households do not have a single member in the labor force.”This was a statistic heralded by President-elect Donald Trump (Appelbaum, 2016, para. 2), in a speech during the election campaign, to illustrate the apparently huge number of unemployed Americans and, thus, to expose the perilous state of the American economy.  \nHowever, if considered critically, this is also a statistic that is incredibly misleading.  \nTrump may be correct that fewer Americans, as a percentage of the total population, are engaged in traditional employment today compared to previous decades. However, the statistic above is not proof that more Americans are unemployed and, indeed, is more indicative of the fact that 20% of American households are headed by retirees (Jacobson, 2016) . In this statistic, Trump is tacitly classifying retirees, 16-to-17-year-olds, and stayat-home parents as being within the ranks ofthe unemployed. Although this classification may be technically accurate, it misleads the public about the general state of the economy.  \nThe recent election campaign was characterized and arguably won on the basis of such bald misinformation and the mischaracterization of seemingly authoritative and objective statistics, figures, and facts. In a year dominated by the twin phenomena of fake news (Holan, 2016) and post-truth politics (Wang, 2016), it is more vital than ever to foster the general public’s critical thinking about the numbers and statistics used––and abused––by business leaders, advocates, and policymakers. In this paper, I will describe an intervention designed to foster such critical thinking, and to enable the public to better distinguish between misleading and representative statistics. I will describe the development of this intervention, informed by our understanding of how people reason about statistics and numbers within the context of topics in the public domain, as well as techniques to foster critical thinking in the classroom.  \nThe Impact of Statistics  \nA prevailing view in the realm of social psychology has been that of cultural cognition—the idea that people form risk perceptions and thus make decisions and form worldviews that cohere strongly with their cultural and political values (Kahan, JenkinsSmith, & Braman, 2011) . This theory is used to explain why certain groups do not believe in climate change or the effectiveness of vaccines, despite overwhelming scientific evidence to the contrary. This is because groups have a tendency to view empirical evidence in a biased manner, confirming evidence that fits with their beliefs at face value, while holding disconfirming evidence to higher critical standards (Lord, Ross  \n1 Correspondence concerning this article should be sent to: Leela Velautham. Email: [leela.velautham@berkeley.edu](leela.velautham@berkeley.edu).  \nBerkeley Review of Education Vol. 7 No. 1, pp. 113-119  \n114 Velautham  \n& Lepper, 1979) . People are thus unswayed by facts that do not fit within their existing views, discarding information that is contrary to their closely held beliefs. However, cultural cognition theory has been repeatedly discounted by experiments carried out by The Reasoning Group at University of California Berkeley, which has empirically demonstrated th","cbCaiorWNOzFlXuf","https://ap.wps.com/l/cbCaiorWNOzFlXuf","pdf",217924,"English","# Designing an Intervention to Promote Critical Thinking About Statistics in the General Public\n## The Impact of Statistics","[{\"question\":\"Why can a single statistic be misleading in public debates?\",\"answer\":\"Because how people interpret statistics can be shaped by classification choices and existing beliefs. A seemingly objective figure may hide misleading assumptions about which groups are counted.\"},{\"question\":\"What does cultural cognition suggest about how people respond to statistical evidence?\",\"answer\":\"People often evaluate empirical evidence through the lens of their cultural and political values. They may accept confirming evidence and scrutinize disconfirming evidence more strictly.\"},{\"question\":\"How can an intervention support critical thinking about statistics?\",\"answer\":\"By fostering the ability to distinguish representative from misleading numbers. The intervention is informed by research on how reasoning about statistics and classroom techniques can help learners revise beliefs based on critical evaluation.\"}]","Designing an Intervention to Promote Critical Thinking About Statistics in the General Public - paper | PDF",1792079812]