Teachers do NOT make 1,500 decisions per day*

*Can anyone cite this figure?

Many repeat the statistic that teachers make 1,500 decisions per day. Fine. But who can properly source it? If someone can prove me wrong and provide the study, I’ll do something embarrassing like pretend to like Nickleback.

The Statistic. If you google “teachers decisions per day,” you’ll likely get the figure 1,500.  After two years of subbing and ten years of teaching, I’d agree with this statistic. But as I started using this statistic for an upcoming blog post, I tried sourcing it.  What I found was an old fashioned game of telephone.

• According to Education Week, the article “1,500 Decisions a Day (At Least!): How Teachers Cope With a Dizzying Array of Questions” cites Google. If you were asking feet per mile, that might work.

• According to BoredTeachers, one of my favorite teaching sites, the article “Teachers Make Over a Thousand Decisions Each Day, and It’s Exhausting” cites busyteachers.org. They specifically say, “According to data collected by busyteacher.org" (emphasis mine). So Busy Teacher did the research. Got it.

• According to Continental Press, the article “Stress Less, Focus More: Tips for Reducing Teacher Decision Fatigue” cites Busy Teacher as well. Nearly identical wording, in fact: “According to data from busyteacher.org, teachers make an average of at least 1,500 educational decisions each school day (emphasis mine).

Easy enough. So when you click the link, which doesn’t go to Busy Teachers, by the way, their infographic also cites the figure. Cool. But where does that come from?

Side Note: If you try going to busyteacher.org, it doesn’t exist.  I’m not doubting it once did, but it doesn’t now. Screenshots below:

Zoom In. If you dig deeper, Agile Ed and Teachers in Their Power cite the 1979 article “Research on teachers' decisions in planning instruction” by Richard Shavelson and Hilda Borko. That’s better.  So I used my JSTOR access and downloaded the article.  The problem?

The statistic wasn’t there.

So I reread it.  And reread it.  Call me lazy, but hitting Control + F and searching “decisions per minute”, “decisions per day,” and “1500” yielded nothing.  So either I completely misread it or even common citations are wrong.  This isn’t the only article cited, though.

• According to School News Australia, the 1500 figure may be attributed to a 1990s study.  This link goes to a blog that cites Shavelson and Borko.  The problem?  404 error.

• The Phillip Jackson book Life in Classrooms may have the statistic, but a single line is all the previous blog cited.

Context. As I read this article draft to my wife, she searched “adults decisions per day.” That figure stands at 33,000 to 35,000, but a cursory glance suggests more solid sources. Or at least sources period.  Sources you can access.  (That’s my entire problem here.)

The Bigger Picture. All too often, educators repeat ideas without sourcing them. How else do fads take such hold? (Don’t even get me started on the debunked notions of so-called learning styles!)  You can’t cite every opinion, of course.  But sometimes just questioning at all goes a long ways.

The Bottom Line. As teachers we make numerous decisions per day.  Few will debate that.  However, until anyone can produce a more substantive citation or conduct a thorough, replicable study, I find this statistic suspect.

Now enjoy your summer break.

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