Bias, assumptions and emotions: why we think what we think

Suitable for 14 to 19-year-olds (secondary and high schools, and college), this article and accompanying activity sheet can be used in the classroom or shared with students online.

This resource links to KS4 and KS5 Computer Science, Psychology and Sociology.

It can also be used as a careers resource and links to Gatsby Benchmarks:
Gatsby Benchmark 2: Learning from career and labour market information
Gatsby Benchmark 4: Linking curriculum learning to careers

• This teaching resource explains the work of Professor Andrew (Andy) Perfors, at The University of Melbourne in Australia, who is studying the nature of bias and other features of cognition, and even applying these findings to machine learning.
• This resource also contains an interview with Andy. If you or your students have a question for him, you can submit it online – go to the article using the Futurum link below and scroll to the bottom of the page. Andy will reply!
• The activity sheet provides ‘talking points’ (based on Bloom’s Taxonomy) to prompt students to reflect on Andy’s research, and tasks them design a cognitive science experiment.

This resource was first published on Futurum Careers, a free online resource and magazine aimed at encouraging 14-19-year-olds worldwide to pursue careers in science, tech, engineering, maths, medicine (STEM) and social sciences, humanities and the arts for people and the economy (SHAPE).

If you like these free resources – or have suggestions for improvements –, please let us know and leave us some feedback. Thank you!