A study has found that one third of American eighth graders – aged 13-14 – believe their nearest neighbour, Canada, is a dictatorship.

The study – the National Assessment of Educational Progress report, by the National Centre for Education Studies (NCES) - found that roughly 33 per cent of American teens assessed believe Canada, along with France and Australia, are nations run by “leaders with absolute power” or are “controlled by the military”, CBC reports. 

The students were posed the multiple choice question: “What do the governments of Canada, Franc and Australia have in common?” Some 23 per cent answered “they have leaders with absolute power”, 10 per cent said the countries “are controlled by the military”, while another 12 per cent answered that the three countries “discourage participation by citizens in public affairs.”

Just 54 per cent chose the correct answer, that all four governments have “constitutions that limit their power”.

Also known as The Nation’s Report Card the NECIS study quizzed more than 29,000 eighth grade students in the US.

The students had to answer multiple choice questions in geography, civics and US history.

The results may not be quite as bad as they seem, The Washington Post argues, as students will often choose an answer at random when they aren’t sure of the correct answer, rather than leaving the question blank. 

This of course admits that regardless of the answer, these students did not know the answer in the first place.

The Washington Post also makes the case that this result, while it shows widespread ignorance of world affairs, isn’t limited to the US, with similar studies in the UK finding widespread misunderstanding of key political issues, such as believing that the British public thinking 31% of the population are immigrants, when in fact the official figure is 13%.