Decomposing political knowledge: what is confidence in knowledge and why it matters

Lee, Seonghui and Matsuo, Akitaka (2018) Decomposing political knowledge: what is confidence in knowledge and why it matters. Electoral Studies, 51. pp. 1-13. ISSN 0261-3794

Preview

Text - Accepted Version Download (1MB) | Preview

Abstract

While political knowledge has been conceptually defined with two constructs – accuracy and confidence in factual information – conventional measurement of political knowledge has relied heavily on retrieval accuracy. Without measuring confidence-in-knowledge, it is not possible to rigorously identify different types of political informedness, such as misinformedness and uninformedness. This article theoretically explores the two constructs of knowledge and argues that each construct has unique antecedents and behavioral consequences. We suggest a survey instrument for confidence-in-knowledge and introduce a method to estimate latent traits of retrieval accuracy and confidence separately. Using our original survey that includes the measure of confidence-in-knowledge, we find that misinformed citizens are as engaged in politics as the well-informed, but their active involvement does not guarantee informed political choices. Our findings warrant further theoretical and empirical exploration of confidence in political knowledge

Item Type:	Article
Official URL:	http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/journal/02613...
Additional Information:	© 2017 Elsevier Ltd.
Divisions:	Methodology
Subjects:	J Political Science > JA Political science (General)
Date Deposited:	08 Jan 2018 10:36
Last Modified:	08 Oct 2025 00:27
URI:	http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/id/eprint/86391

Actions (login required)

View Item