National Board for Professional Teaching Standards Assessor Training: Impact of Bias Reduction Exercises

This study is an in-depth investigation of the NBPTS bias reduction training from the perspective of assessors. The research examined how successful the bias training was in guiding assessors to recognize their biases and to identify actions to be used to reduce the impact of bias. The study focused on portfolio video entries to allow for a greater exploration of bias, since assessors are provided with a visual and aural depiction of the candidates and their students. Valuable confirmation of the efficacy of the bias awareness exercises was obtained. Results also indicated that further work could be done to guide assessors in specifically examining societal biases and to emphasize the importance of assessors taking conscious action to minimize their biases during scoring.