Processing the War in Iraq While Learning About American Politics

Abstract

When political knowledge is scarce, affective attitudes, which can consist of emotion-driven feelings regarding political figures, government, country, and foreign nations, often assist policy judgment. Based on pre- and postsurveys administered in Introduction to American Politics courses, fall 2003–fall 2005, this study examines how political learning affects the formulation of students' policy preferences on the war in Iraq. With political knowledge gains for our students, the relative impact of affective attitudes such as confidence in the President, trust in government, and enemy images of Iran declined with regard to Iraq policy preferences, while the relationship between issue preferences such as defense spending and Iraq policy strengthened. Our students' attentiveness and surveillance knowledge of contemporary political figures and facts was more significantly related to preferences on the current occupation than on the past decision to invade Iraq. Teaching methods with more extensive course integration of TV news and film clips had higher surveillance knowledge gains that reduced student's reliance on affective attitudes, wherein the learning impact appeared more influential than potential emotion evoked by heightened awareness of political figures and facts related to a contentious and contemporary debate.

Keywords:

• affective attitudes
• policy reasoning
• political learning
• surveillance knowledge

Notes

Note. Questions provided a four-point scale where 1 = no attention/no support, 2 = little attention/no real support, 3 = some attention/some support, 4 = a lot of attention/complete support. Percentage figures reflect students with some or a lot of attention to the war in Iraq, some or complete support of the invasion/occupation. Mean averages of the four-point scale are listed in the far right column.

*p ≤ .01, ⁺ p ≤ .05 for paired sample t-tests of mean differences, and for Spearman Rho rank-order correlation coefficients.

Note. Percentage figures represent some/a lot of confidence in the President and trust in government, and negative/very negative views of Iran, with mean average of a five-point scale. Defense spending percentages reflect those who agree defense spending should be increased/greatly increased, with mean average of a five-point scale. The mean scale of national identity/patriotism reflects a combined score of the three items on a five-point scale, where higher values are associated with higher degrees of patriotism.

*p ≤ .01, **p ≤ .001 for paired sample t-tests.

Note. Combined results for all 738 students, pre- and postknowledge. Knowledge scales are constructed where correct answers = 1, 0 otherwise. Where two answers are possible, 2 = both answers correct, 1 = one answer correct, 0 otherwise.

*In spring 2004, the question asked students to name two major Democratic Presidential candidates.

**p ≤ .001 for paired sample t-tests.

Note. An ordered-probit analysis is utilized with the dependent variables coded 1–4, in which 4 indicates the strongest support for the invasion and occupation of Iraq, consisting of the fall 2003–fall 2005 courses (N = 738).

*p ≤ .01, **p ≤ .001, ⁺ p ≤ .05.

Note. An ordered-probit analysis is utilized with the dependent variables coded 1–4, in which 4 indicates the strongest support for the invasion and occupation of Iraq and consists of students completing fall 2004–fall 2005 American politics courses. The student groupings consisted of the courses that reported none or rare use of video sources such as TV news and film clips (n = 288), and courses in which students reported some or a lot of use of such video support in course instruction (n = 286).

*p ≤ .01, **p ≤ .001, ⁺ p ≤ .05.