NSF Experiment Sheds Light on Deliberation and Political Knowledge



A new federally-funded study has found no evidence to support the widely-held view that public deliberation increases citizen knowledge of political issues.

The research, by Peter Muhlberger at the University of Pittsburgh and Lori Weber of California State University (Chico), shows that, although participants in the study did acquire substantial new knowledge about four policy issues, deliberating did not significantly increase overall knowledge.

Nor did deliberating add substantially to changes in participants' views. In fact, just reading and thinking about the information participants were given produced the gains in knowledge and changes in attitudes measured by post-deliberation surveys.

Professors Muhlberger and Weber point out, however, that deliberation promotes learning for some people. In their experiment, participants who hold an "active" conception of citizenship demonstrated the biggest gains in knowledge. People who subscribe to the "active" view of citizenship believe a citizen's responsibilities include engagement with other citizens, including public officials, for the purpose of making sound and fair policy decisions.

Specifically, the authors see a direct link between learning about policy issues and how "politically reflective" people are. Political reflectiveness has to do with the extent to which people feel personally responsible for forming their own political views. The more politically reflective people are, the more knowledge they gain.

In contrast, the authors found the lowest levels of knowledge-acquisition among participants for whom citizenship means obeying the law, showing deference and respect to political authorities, and,, approving punishment of those who fail to do these things. (For a more detailed analysis, click here)

Muhlberger and Weber argue that deliberation does play an important role in citizen learning about policy issues. But it is the prospect of deliberation, rather than deliberating itself that motivates people to expand their knowledge. Although actually deliberating had no effect on knowledge-gain, the anticipation of deliberation may have promoted learning by prompting participants to read and think about the information materials they received.

What should practitioners of deliberation take away from Muhlberger and Weber's research findings? What do the authors see as the lessons for practice?

First, because reading has more of an impact on people's ability to acquire knowledge relevant to a policy issue than deliberation itself does, reading material should be carefully selected and made available to anyone who might participate. A strong effort should be made to ensure that people read the material.


Giving people reason to believe they will have an opportunity to deliberate with others is an important way to motivate them to read information about the issue. If people can't be counted on to read beforehand, though, time for reading should be set aside as part of the deliberative event. Participants should be given enough time to get through the material. (In the authors' study, the time devoted to reading was almost half as much as the time reserved for discussion.)

Second, if the chief aim of a public deliberation is to engage and inform as much of the public as possible, then finding ways to get large numbers of people to read may have a broader impact on the issue than holding big-meeting deliberations. But if the primary goal is to create a sense of community, build relationships, enhance people's personal sense of citizenship, or raise the level of active involvement, then smaller deliberations may be more useful.

Third, reminding participants of their roles as citizens enhances learning, but only if no discussion follows or if the discussion will take place on-line. According to Muhlberger and Weber, reminding participants of their responsibilities as citizens doesn't promote learning when people deliberate face-to-face. This could be because talking face-to-face with others inhibits people from disagreeing (because of politeness, for example, or out of fear of experiencing conflict). In contrast, on-line discussion lets participants feel freer to speak candidly, which in turn may enhance learning.

The Muhlberger and Weber study focuses narrowly on acquiring "decision knowledge" (policy implications, statistics, etc.) To their credit, the authors caution that their findings don't address whether deliberation promotes other types of learning, such as understanding fellow participants' beliefs and attitudes.

The authors realize that they might be criticized for not making certain that participants "really deliberated." But they believe their experiment followed current best practices. For that reason, "[it seems plausible that] at least a few discussion groups...deliberated...."

This begs a crucial question, though. There has been very little discussion, among either scholars or practitioners, as to what the essential characteristics of deliberation are. Nor has there been much discussion concerning how to determine the quality or the effectiveness of deliberation. So it's difficult to say that we know when deliberation has occurred.

Until such fundamental questions have been asked and answered through research, even admirable studies such as Muhlberger and Weber's will be less illuminating and less useful for practice than they might be. - To read the full scientific article, please click here.

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