Observation or Interpretation? Demonstrating Unintentional Subjectivity and Interpretive Variance

Abstract

People often make interpretations when they believe they are providing factual descriptions. To demonstrate unintentional interpretation, I showed a brief ambiguous video clip and asked students to write descriptions of what they saw and heard. When students evaluated their responses, they discovered that 96% of the class wrote interpretations rather than strictly factual descriptions. Furthermore, the content of students' interpretations varied widely. Analyses of a qualitative measure of 3 dimensions of student learning (subsequent behavior, success at articulating the purpose of the exercise, and self-reported personal impact) supported the effectiveness of this exercise in increasing students' understanding of unintentional interpretation.