The purpose of this qualitative study was to explore how pre-service teachers perceive, understand, and feel about Data-driven decision making (DDDM), as well as the impact of targeted, persuasive instruction on those constructs. According to conceptual change theory, learners sometimes hold knowledge, feelings, and beliefs that may be counterproductive to acquiring new knowledge, as a result addressing those variables is crucial to the learning process. Research on teachers suggests they often hold views that make them reluctant to learn more about or engage in DDDM (e.g.), but by tailoring instruction to address teacher concerns, they may become more open to DDDM (Airola & Dunn, 2011). Our qualitative analysis and findings indicated our sample of preservice teachers did overwhelmingly hold initially negative views of DDDM, but our persuasive instructional unit created a cognitive shift away from this negativity and towards openness to and interest in DDDM.