Alexander Bukh wrote:

"One of the participants at the workshop where I presented the findings of my study, who is a highly qualified political psychologist told me that from a psychological point of view, respondents' perceptions of whether they were influenced by something are not really important when trying to measure the actual influence of a certain event or text....After all, how many of us can trace the exact origins of their knowledge of certain historical facts and more importantly their interpretation?"

I have been harboring a similar reaction to Earl's excellent research based on student self-reporting of where they learn about history. People can absorb knowledge without remembering it, and this can influence their attitudes. They can also be influenced indirectly without knowing it, say if their teachers are influenced by the local textbook. Underlying attitudes especially matter for those with little knowledge and who pay scant attention. Such people are more likely to hold attitude driven beliefs and opinions that are consistent than those who have more knowledge.

Also, we should not assume there is a positive correlation between the amount of time spent studying a subject and the degree of influence on a student. A textbook with two page on the Pacific War might not be much more influential than another textbook with only one page, and probably more influential than one with
10 pages. If a single page (or paragraph) on the
Pacific War in a textbook is all one have read on the subject, it can have a very large impact on one's views.

What we need to deal with this problem is a study that rates textbooks on something like a nationalist versus anti-militarist scale, and then interviews recent high school graduates from school districts using ideologically diverse textbooks and ask them questions that elicit their underlying attitudes on history.
This way we can see whether there is a correlation between textbooks and the attitudes of those potentially exposed to them directly or indirectly.

Paul Midford