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The effects of Voting Advice Applications (VAAs) on Pre-voting Citizens’ Political Trust: Findings from an Experiment in Wallonia

Political Sociology
Education
Experimental Design
Youth
Laura Uyttendaele
Université catholique de Louvain
Laura Uyttendaele
Université catholique de Louvain

Abstract

The Stemtest/Test électoral éducatif is a Voting Advice Application (VAA) providing citizens with personalized information on their ideological profile by comparing their stance on a selection of political issues with those of parties. While several scholars agree that VAAs are interactive tools to assist young people in familiarizing themselves with political issues and ideological positions and can be used as a teaching resource for citizenship education, field research examining the effects of VAAs on young people particularly is lacking. This study aims to explain the effects of a VAA on pre-voting citizens’ political trust. We set up an original experiment that takes place in the classroom with 5th and 6th-year secondary pupils in schools all across Wallonia, in the French community of Belgium. First results showed that the intervention of a VAA in the classroom contributes to raising pupils’ political trust. We use structural equation modeling to investigate two explanatory models of VAA effects on political trust: the information background model (including political information and political interest variable) and the socialization model (adding family background and political efficacy factors). We can state the effects of a VAA intervention on political trust are not driven by respondents’ sense of political efficacy nor information but is indeed the most important factor in the models. Although VAA use does not affect respondents’ sense of external political efficacy, the latter also plays a large role in shaping their political trust.The Stemtest/Test électoral éducatif is a Voting Advice Application (VAA) providing citizens with personalized information on their ideological profile by comparing their stance on a selection of political issues with those of parties. While several scholars agree that VAAs are interactive tools to assist young people in familiarizing themselves with political issues and ideological positions and can be used as a teaching resource for citizenship education, field research examining the effects of VAAs on young people particularly is lacking. This study aims to explain the effects of a VAA on pre-voting citizens’ political trust. We set up an original experiment that takes place in the classroom with 5th and 6th-year secondary pupils in schools all across Wallonia, in the French community of Belgium. First results showed that the intervention of a VAA in the classroom contributes to raising pupils’ political trust. We use structural equation modeling to investigate two explanatory models of VAA effects on political trust: the information background model (including political information and political interest variable) and the socialization model (adding family background and political efficacy factors). We can state the effects of a VAA intervention on political trust are not driven by respondents’ sense of political efficacy nor information but is indeed the most important factor in the models. Although VAA use does not affect respondents’ sense of external political efficacy, the latter also plays a large role in shaping their political trust.