Research shows that professionals in education and media overwhelmingly hold left-wing/democrat political views. If unexamined, such political hegemony creates bias that can limit individuals' ability to evaluate information, make decisions, and consider students' perspectives. The same research shows that individuals capable of interrogating their biases are better informed, more open-minded, and more effective leaders.
The following tools can help educators and students interrogate their biases to further professional development, critical thinking, and media/information literacy.
Political Typology Quiz This quiz identifies a person's position on the American political spectrum. Though a few of the questions are too simplistic or binary for the complex issues they measure, most are well-formed for an quick and accessible tool. Explanations of key terms and political parties/placement accompany results. My results overgeneralized my stances and political affiliation, which is likely due to the simplistic nature of the questions, but as a starting point, this quiz's results are acceptably accurate. The quiz was developed by the Pew Research Center, a respected and generally apolitical institution. I highly recommend using this tool to reflect on how a person's potential biases might affect their interactions with students and then have students reflect on their biases to support the development of critical thinking and media/information literacy. This quiz could be part of an assessment pre-test.
How Reliable Is Your News Source? This guide shows where media organizations fall along the political spectrum based on their biases. I disagree with the first chart's placement of Reuters and Newsweek in the "Center" category, as they regularly demonstrate slight leftward bias, but overall, the site's charts are a valuable resource for introducing media bias as a concept.
IDR Labs Political Bias Test Although some questions are hypothetical or too simplistic to provide fine-tuned results, this test could serve as a useful point of comparison and contrast to the Pew Center's Political Typology Quiz. The test's creator, IDR Labs (Individual Differences Research Labs), is an early-stage venture capital company that offers tests on everything from entertainment to psychology. Not much information is available about IDR Labs, so I'm skeptical of its overall credibility; however, it still offers a place to begin discussion and evaluation with students. IDR Labs claims its tests are based on peer-reviewed research and lists the studies, but there's no way to know whether study results were applied appropriately. This test could serve as a tool for practicing critical thinking and media/information literacy through source evaluation in addition to offering a lens for political bias.
Pew Research Quiz: Identify Fact vs. Opinion The University of Wisconsin-Green Bay shares research showing that Americans identify bias in reporting that favors an opposing political perspective but not when it favors a political perspective they support. It links to a Pew Research quiz that asks users to identify facts versus opinions. The questions are well written, and the feedback is detailed, explaining the answer to each question and showing what percentage of people affiliated with each major political party identified the question (fact or opinion) and what stance they take on the issue. This serves as a good introduction to bias and could be used as a lead-in to the other tools on this page.
FAIR Media Literacy Guide FAIR (Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting) provides a detailed explanation of how bias affects news coverage. Its strength is the specificity of examples it provides to illustrate the subtle ways news organization funding and political affiliations shape their reporting. Educators can use this to reflect on their political biases and media consumption. When teaching, they may need to introduce bias and media literacy with one of the above tools first, since FAIR's analysis is complex, but this is an excellent resource that explains bias while modeling critical thinking, media literacy, and narrative analysis.