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Monthly Archives: July 2022

The Bruce Willis Method: Catching Up Post-Covid [Reposted]
Andrew Watson
Andrew Watson
July-31-2022

The Bruce Willis Method: Catching Up Post-Covid [Reposted]

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Because of Covid, our students have fallen behind. How can we help them “catch up”?

As I argued back in June, Bruce Willis might (or might not) have helpful answers to that question.

In the third Die Hard movie, Brue Willis and his unexpected partner Samuel L. Jackson need to get to Wall Street a hurry. They commandeer a cab.

An experienced cab driver, Jackson suggests taking 9th Avenue south, but Willis insists on going through Central Park.

It turns out: he doesn’t mean taking the road that runs through the Central Park, but driving through the park itself — across crowded lawns, through busy playgrounds, past famous fountains, down winding bike-paths.

His desperate short-cut helps the team catch up.

In education these days, it seems that we need our very own Bruce Willis.

Because of Covid, our students are WAY BEHIND.

5th graders don’t know as much math as they used to. 2nd graders can’t read as well as they once could. 9th graders have lost even more social skills than 9th graders usually lose.

Because our students know less and can do less, we teachers want to help them CATCH UP.

And so we ask: what’s the educational analogue to driving through the park? How can we — like Bruce and Samuel — help our students learn faster?

Like lots of folks, I’ve been thinking about that question for a while now. I’ve got bad news, and worse news; and I’ve got good news.

The Bad News

The Bruce Willis Method does not exist in education.

We can’t “drive through the park.” We can’t, in other words, help students “learn the same amount, only faster.”

Here’s why I say so:

If we knew how to teach any faster, we would have been doing so already.

Seriously. Do you know any teacher who says, “I could have covered this curriculum in 10 weeks. But what the heck, I’m going to drag it out and take 12 or 13”?

I don’t. And I suspect you don’t either.

We have always been helping our students learn as best we could. If we knew better ways, we would have been using them.

Of course Willis can get through the park faster; it was a MOVIE!  Alas, we can’t follow his example.

I am, in fact, quite worried about all the talk of “catching up.” In my mind, it creates two clear dangers:

First Danger:

If we try to catch up, we’ll probably — in one way or another — try to speed up. We will, for instance, explore a topic in 2 weeks instead of 3 weeks. We will combine 3 units into 1.

However, the decision to speed up necessarily means that students spend less time thinking about a particular topic.

As Dan Willingham has taught us: “memory is the residue of thought.” If students spend less time thinking about a topic, they will learn less about it.

The result: they won’t catch up. Instead, they will be further behind.

In other words: such efforts to help students recover from Covid learning muddle will — paradoxically —  hinder their learning.

Second Danger:

If we believe that “catching up” is a realistic short-term possibility, we open ourselves up to inspiring-but-unfounded claims.

People who don’t work in schools will tell us that “you can’t solve problems with the same thinking that created those problems in the first place.”

Their claims might include words & phrases like “transformational” or “thinking outside the box” or “new paradigm” or “disrupt.”

These claims will almost certainly come with products to buy: new technology here, new textbooks there, new mantras yon.

They will sound uplifting and exciting and tempting and plausible.

But…

… any “research-based” claims will almost certainly extrapolate substantially beyond the research’s actual findings;

… these ideas won’t have been tested at scale in a realistic setting;

… such claims will defy core knowledge about cognitive architecture. (No, students can’t overcome working memory limitations simply because “they can look up everything on the internet.”)

In other words: because the goal (“catching up”) is so tempting, we might forget to be appropriately skeptical of inspiring claims (“your students can catch up if you only do THIS THING!”).

Now is the time to be more skeptical, not less skeptical, of dramatic claims.

The Good News

Despite all this gloomy news, I do think we have a very sensible and realistic option right in front of us.

I propose three steps for the beginning of the next school year.

Step 1: determine what our students already know.

In previous years, I could reasonably predict that my students know this much grammar and this much about Shakespeare and this much about analyzing literature.

Well, they just don’t anymore. I need to start next year by finding out what they really do know. (Hint: it will almost certainly be less — maybe dramatically less — than they did in the past.)

Step 2: plan a realistic curriculum building from that foundation.

If we meet our students where they are, they are much likelier to learn the new ideas and procedures we teach them.

In fact, they’re also likelier to strengthen and consolidate the foundation on which they’re building.

Yes, I might feel like my students are “behind.” But they’re behind an abstract standard.

As long as they’re making good progress in learning new ideas, facts, and procedures, they’re doing exactly the right cognitive work. They won’t catch up this year.

But if they make steady progress for several years, they’ll be well back on track.

Step 3: draw on the lessons of cognitive science.

In the paragraphs above, I’ve been highly skeptical of uplifting, simplistic quick-fix claims. (“If we revolutionize education with X, our students will learn calculus in 6th grade!”)

At the same time, I do think that teachers can make steady and coherent improvements in our work. When we understand the mental processes that lead to long-term memory formation, we can teach more effectively.

We should study…

… working memory function: the core mental bottleneck that both allows and impedes learning;

… the importance of desirable difficulties — spacing, interleaving, retrieval practice — in forming long-term memories;

… the sub-components of attention that add up to concentration and understanding;

… a realistic framework for understanding student motivation.

And so forth.

Understanding these topics will not “revolutionize education overnight.”

However, teachers who design lessons and plan syllabi with these insights in mind can in fact help their students consolidate ideas more effectively.

In other words: don’t follow Bruce Willis through the park.

Instead, we should learn how learning takes place in the brain. When our teaching is guided by that knowledge, our students have the best long-term chance of getting back on track.

Do Classroom Decorations Distract Students? A Story in 4 Parts… [Reposted]
Andrew Watson
Andrew Watson
July-24-2022

Do Classroom Decorations Distract Students? A Story in 4 Parts… [Reposted]

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As we prepare for the upcoming school year, how should we think about decorating our classrooms?

Can research give us any pointers?

This story, initially posted in March of 2022, paints a helpfully rich research picture.

Teacher training programs often encourage us to brighten our classrooms with lively, colorful, personal, and uplifting stuff:

Inspirational posters.

Students’ art work.

Anchor charts.

Word walls.

You know the look.

We certainly hope that these decorations invite our students in and invigorate their learning. (We might even have heard that “enriched environments promote learning.”)

At the same time, we might worry that all those decorations could distract our students from important cognitive work.

So, which is it? Do decorations distract or inspire? Do they promote learning or inhibit learning? If only we had research on this question…

Part I: Early Research

But wait: we DO have research on this objection.

Back in 2014, a team led by Dr. Anna Fisher asked if classroom decorations might be “Too Much of a Good Thing.”

They worked with Kindergarten students, and found that — sure enough — students who learned in highly-decorated rooms paid less attention and learned less than others in “sparsely” decorated classroom.

Since then, other researchers have measured students’ performance on specific mental tasks in busy environments, or in plain environments.

The results: the same. A busy visual field reduced working memory and attention scores, compared to plain visual environments.

It seems that we have a “brain-based” answer to our question:

Classroom decorations can indeed be “too much of a good thing.”

Taken too far, they distract students from learning.

Part II: Important Doubts

But wait just one minute…

When I present this research in schools, I find that teachers have a very plausible question.

Sure: those decorations might distract students at first. But, surely the students get used to them.

Decorations might make learning a bit harder at first. But ultimately students WON’T be so distracted, and they WILL feel welcomed, delighted, and inspired.

In this theory, a small short-term problem might well turn into a substantial long-term benefit.

And I have to be honest: that’s a plausible hypothesis.

Given Fisher’s research (and that of other scholars), I think the burden of proof is on people who say that decorations are not distracting. But I don’t have specific research to contradict those objections.

Part III: The Researchers Return

So now maybe you’re thinking: “why don’t researchers study this specific question”?

I’ve got good news: they just did.

In a recently-published study, another research team (including Fisher, and led by Dr. Karrie Godwin, who helped in the 2014 study) wondered if students would get used to the highly decorated classrooms.

Research isn’t research if we don’t use fancy terminology, so they studied “habituation.” As in: did students habituate to the highly decorated classrooms?

In the first half of their study, researchers again worked with Kindergarteners. Students spent five classes studying science topics in plainly decorated classrooms. (The visual material focused only on the topic being presented.)

Then they spent ten classes studying science topics in highly decorated classrooms. (These decorations resembled typical classroom decorations: posters, charts, artwork, etc.)

Unsurprisingly (based on the 2014 study), students were more distractable in the decorated classroom.

But: did they get used to the decorations? Did they become less distractable over time? Did they habituate?

The answer: a little bit.

In other words: students were less distractible than they initially were in the decorated classroom. But they were still more distractible than in the sparsely decorated room.

Even after ten classes, students hadn’t fully habituated.

Part IV: Going Big

This 2-week study with kindergarteners, I think, gives us valuable information.

We might have hoped that students will get used to decorations, and so benefit from their welcoming uplift (but not be harmed by their cognitive cost). So far, this study deflates that hope.

However, we might still hold out a possibility:

If students partially habituate over two weeks, won’t they fully habituate eventually? Won’t the habituation trend continue?

Team Godwin wanted to answer that question too. They ran yet another study in primary school classrooms.

This study had somewhat different parameters (the research nitty-gritty gets quite detailed). But the headline is: this study lasted 15 weeks.

Depending on the school system you’re in, that’s between one-third and one-half of a school year.

How much did the students habituate to the visual distractions?

The answer: not at all.

The distraction rate was the same after fifteen weeks as it was at the beginning of the year.

To my mind, that’s an AMAZING research finding.

Putting It Together

At this point, I think we have a compelling research story.

Despite our training — and, perhaps, despite our love of decoration — we have a substantial body of research suggesting that over-decorated classrooms interfere with learning.

The precise definition of “over-decorated” might take some time to sort out. And, the practical problems of putting up/taking down relevant learning supports deserves thought and sympathetic exploration.

However: we shouldn’t simply hope away the concern that young students can be distracted by the environment.

And we shouldn’t trust that they’ll get used to the busy environment.

Instead, we should deliberately create environments that welcome students, inspire students, and help students concentrate and learn.

Fisher, A. V., Godwin, K. E., & Seltman, H. (2014). Visual environment, attention allocation, and learning in young children: When too much of a good thing may be bad. Psychological science, 25(7), 1362-1370.

Godwin, K. E., Leroux, A. J., Seltman, H., Scupelli, P., & Fisher, A. V. (2022). Effect of Repeated Exposure to the Visual Environment on Young Children’s Attention. Cognitive Science, 46(2), e13093.

Remembering and Forgetting in the Age of Technology by Michelle Miller
Erik Jahner, PhD
Erik Jahner, PhD
July-19-2022

Remembering and Forgetting in the Age of Technology by Michelle Miller

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The cognition of remembering and forgetting is central to our lives and our intellectual valuation of ourselves. Remembering and Forgetting in the Age of Technology: Teaching, Learning, and the Science of Memory in a Wired World refreshes our knowledge and shares best practices, but it also situates and reframes the way we approach thinking about memory. The author, Michelle D. Miller, is a professor of psychological science and President’s Distinguished Teaching Fellow at Northern Arizona University. Her experience teaching, consulting, and listening to educators make this book an authentic dialog with the reader.  She displays a nuanced understanding of how the concepts of memory have not only cognitive and instructional relevance but also are embedded in deeply held cultural beliefs, persistent half-truths, and pedagogical value systems. Media coverage and coffee-shop conversations about the promises and pitfalls of technology and memory have been rife with incomplete knowledge, myths, and overzealous myth-busting. In this very accessible but thorough book, Miller helps us navigate this and get our footing.

Miller respects the idea that teaching instructors is a social-emotional endeavor, not an act of transmitting a set of best practices. Before beginning to evaluate the science, it is important to understand our preconceived notions and how our value systems bias our perspective. What is hype and what is fearmongering? Where has the science been misrepresented to preserve traditions or sell the next big idea? In all her chapters, as well as the structure of the book overall, Miller helps us to situate ourselves within the larger cultural value systems surrounding this area of cognition. She helps us understand the foundations of arguments and only then does she guide us through the science that supports or refutes some of these beliefs.  We cannot seek to improve our practices without first respecting and understanding our current dispositions.

As Miller points out, many of us remember foundational models of memory from introduction to psychology courses or some highlights from a text read long ago. The science examining the mechanisms of memory has come a long way and the basic models have been updated but not yet socialized. These early models led many of us to design instructional material, but it’s time for an update. The science has become more ecologically valid and nuanced, and Miller pulls these updates into the text, not through a dense academic literature review, but by illustrating research findings through our everyday experiences: she shows us that the updates make sense. Moreover, the summaries of the studies presented are accurate and well-cited translations of cognitive-neuroscience for those seeking a deeper dive.

The book’s topics are clearly organized, easily referenced, and situated in a narrative structure enjoyable for a long plane ride or summer beach read. She starts the book with a review of the place technology has in our culture and how we generally feel about it, separating the arguments over morality and hype from the arguments over the impact. In the second chapter, she dives into the science, painting a picture of updated models and evidence. This includes some fun but measured myth-busting. We then get into some very concrete best practices: How can we improve our memory? How can we enhance instruction? And where is memory improvement necessary, and where is it important to rely on technology as a cognitive extension of ourselves? As she moves into the topic of attention, we are reminded that technology has often been demonized, but technology is a double-edged sword; it both supports and distracts. We see in the final chapters a balanced view helping to sort out the wheat from the chafe and set up a framework for evaluating the ongoing rapid development of cultural innovations.  Technology will continue to evolve, and we need to develop a healthy, critical, curious, and exploratory disposition towards its integration.

While one gets many very concrete suggestions from this book, it is the framing that really lands this book. It trains the reader to think flexibly about the present and the future. I can’t wait to read it again and share Miller’s insights with my students and colleagues.

Is “Cell Phone Addiction” Really a Thing? [Reposted]
Andrew Watson
Andrew Watson
July-17-2022

Is “Cell Phone Addiction” Really a Thing? [Reposted]

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A well-known Education Twitter personality claimed that “cell phones are as addictive as drugs.”

Are they? What should we do when someone makes that claim?

Reposted from November of 2021

I recently read a tweet asserting “the fact that cell phones are proven to be as addictive as drugs.”

Of course, people casually use the word “addictive” about all sorts of things: chocolate, massages, pumpkin-spice lattes. (No doubt somewhere Twitter is being described as “addictive.” My mother tells me that this blog is addictive.)

But all that casual language doesn’t add up “proving the fact” that cell phones are “as addictive as drugs.” So I started wondering: has this “fact” been “proven”?

Good News, Bad News (Good News, Meh News)

Over the years I’ve adopted a simple strategy. When someone makes a factual claim about research, I ask for the research.

In this case, I simply asked the tweep for the research behind the claim.

Good news: He answered!

I’ve been amazed over the years how often people make “research-based” claims and then refuse to provide research to support them.

In this case, he did in fact point toward research on the topic. (I found one website claiming that 16% of adolescents, and 6.3% of the population, are addicted; alas, no sources cited. Happily, they do provide treatment…)

The tweep’s willingness to cite evidence enhances his credibility. Let’s check it out…

Bad news: hmm. “Evidence,” in this case, means “links to newspaper articles.” Generally speaking, USA Today and Vice.com aren’t the best places to find research. Research is published in journals. (Heck, I’ve even criticized the New York Times for its research credulity.)

So: the tweep’s credibility clicks down slightly.

Good news: All three of the links do, in fact, point to underlying research! I didn’t get a direct connection to the promised research, but I can keep digging to find it.

Credibility clicks back up.

Meh news: it turns out that all three articles point to the same underlying research. That is: I didn’t find three studies supporting the claim that “cell phones are proven to be as addictive as drugs”; I got one.

Now: one study isn’t nothing. But [checks notes] one isn’t three.

This Just In: Correlation Isn’t…

Given how much is riding on this one study, let’s check it out.

First off, we can see right there in the title that the study focuses on correlation. As you’ve no doubt heard dozens (thousands?) of times, “correlation isn’t causation.”

In this case, the authors asked 48 people questions about their cell-phone usage. Based on their answers, they categorized some of those people as “addicted.” And they then found brain differences between the “addicted” and “not addicted” people.

This quick summary leads to several concerns.

First: one study of 48 people doesn’t “prove a fact.” It might be an interesting data point, but that’s all.

Second: this study doesn’t claim to “prove a fact.” Using a questionnaire, it DEFINES some folks as addicted and others as not addicted.

Third: “brain differences” always seems like a big deal, but trust me — they might not be.

People who throw the javelin probably have a different “average muscular profile” than people who run marathons, because they’re using different muscles.

People who play the piano probably have different neural profiles than people who dance ballet, because they’re spending more time using THIS part of the brain than THAT part.

It seems likely people who score high on this “cell-phone addiction” questionnaire behave differently than those who don’t; so it’s not dramatically surprising that their brains are different.

Did the phone cause to brain differences, or brain differences cause phone use? We don’t know. (Because, “correlation isn’t …”)

Important to Note

One interesting point does jump out. The brain differences found by this research team do — in some ways — align with plausible predictions about addiction.

Now, the researchers don’t make strong claims here: the word “drugs” appears only once in the body of the study.

This finding isn’t a big surprise to me. Very roughly, the  brain differences have to do with “our ability to control what we pay attention to.” It’s not hugely surprising that heavy cell-phone users have brain differences there (and that people addicted to drugs do too).

Don’t Stop Now

If the tweep’s study doesn’t support the claim that “cell phones are proven to be addictive,” does other research?

To answer that question, I did a simple google search (“cell phone addiction real”). The first scholarly article that pops up says…not so much.

Here’s their summary:

Although the majority of research in the field declares that smartphones are addictive or takes the existence of smartphone addiction as granted, we did not find sufficient support from the addiction perspective to confirm the existence of smartphone addiction at this time.

The behaviors observed in the research could be better labeled as problematic or maladaptive smartphone use and their consequences do not meet the severity levels of those caused by addiction.

In brief: “maladaptive,” yes; “addictive,” no.

As I continued clicking, I found other skeptical reviews (for instance, here), and also found some that embrace the category (with some open questions, here).

Oh, and, by the way: “cell phone addiction” isn’t included in the DSM-5.

In other words, I think we can reasonably describe the category of “cell phone addiction” as an active scholarly debate. To be clear, this conclusion means we can’t reasonably describe it as “a proven fact.”

Why I Care

I am, believe it or not, open to the idea that cell phones might be addictive. If they are — if at some point research “proves that fact” — then this label might help us treat a real problem effectively.

My objection springs from another source entirely.

I worry when debate about measurable claims sinks to applying insulting labels.

If I think that asking students to memorize is a bad idea, I could study research on the topic. Or, I could dismiss it as “drill and kill.” The insulting label replaces the argument.

If I think that teacher talk is bad, I could study research on the topic. Or, I could mock it as “sage on the stage.” The dismissive label replaces the argument.

If I think that cell-phone usage is bad for teens, I could study research on the topic. Or, I could call it “an addiction.” The alarming label replaces the argument.

If we’re going to rely on research to make decisions about teaching and education (which is, after all, the GOAL of our organization) we should never replace research with labels.

Instead, let’s try something else. Let’s replace labels with research…

Horvath, J., Mundinger, C., Schmitgen, M. M., Wolf, N. D., Sambataro, F., Hirjak, D., … & Wolf, R. C. (2020). Structural and functional correlates of smartphone addiction. Addictive behaviors, 105, 106334.

Panova, T., & Carbonell, X. (2018). Is smartphone addiction really an addiction?. Journal of behavioral addictions, 7(2), 252-259.

Billieux, J., Maurage, P., Lopez-Fernandez, O., Kuss, D. J., & Griffiths, M. D. (2015). Can disordered mobile phone use be considered a behavioral addiction? An update on current evidence and a comprehensive model for future research. Current Addiction Reports, 2(2), 156-162.

Gutiérrez, J., & Rodríguez de Fonseca, F. (2016). Gabriel Rubio.: Cell Phone Addiction: A Review. Front. Psychiatry, 7, 175.

The Best Teaching Advice We’ve Got
Andrew Watson
Andrew Watson
July-10-2022

The Best Teaching Advice We’ve Got

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I’m on my annual vacation during this month, so I’ll be posting some articles that got attention during the last year.

This post, initially from December of 2021, looks at a proposed different way to “put all the research pieces together.”

You want to improve your teaching with psychology research?

We’ve got good news, and bad news.

And more good news.

Good News: we have lots and LOTS of research. We can talk about attention, or working memory, or the spacing effect, or motivation, or stress…the list is long. And super helpful.

So much practical advice!

Bad News: actually, the bad news is the same as the good news. We’ve got SO MUCH good research that it’s honestly hard to keep track of it all.

I mean, seriously. Should you start by looking at attention research? Or stress research?

Should we think about the motivational effects of student-teacher relationships, or the perils of working memory overload, or the benefits of desirable difficulty?

Which is most important?

Honestly, I think our next priority is not so much finding out new truths about learning, but organizing all the information we already have.

More Good News

If you agree that we really need someone to sort all these suggestions into a coherent system, you’ll be delighted to read this article by Stephen Chew (Twitter handle: @SChewPsych) and William Cerbin (@BillCerbin).

Other scholars — for instance, Barak Rosenshine — have put together a coherent system based on learning principles. Chew and Cerbin, instead, organize their system around cognitive challenges.

That is:

If students feel anxiety about a topic or discipline, that emotion will interfere with their learning.

If students have prior misconceptions, they will distort students’ understanding.

If classroom work or assignments go beyond working memory limits, students won’t learn effectively (or, at all).

When planning a course or a lesson or an assignment, teachers can think their way through these specific challenges. By contemplating each one, we can design our work to best facilitate learning.

Getting the Emphasis Right

If you’re thinking “this is such excellent news! It just can’t get any better!” — well — I’ve got some news: it gets better.

Chew and Cerbin write:

There is no single best teaching strategy for all students, topics, and situations. The proposed framework is not prescriptive … and can guide adaptation of teaching practice.

In other words, they’re not saying: here’s a list of things to do.

Instead, they are saying: here are several topics/problems to consider.

Teaching advice should not include “best practices.” (That’s a business concept.) It should include “best questions to ponder as we make decisions.” Chew and Cerbin make this point repeatedly.

Frequent readers know that I’ve been banging on for years with this mantra: “Don’t just do this thing; instead, think this way.”

We should think about our students’ working memory limitations. The strategies we use might differ for 1st graders and 8th graders.

We should think about the importance of transfer. A Montessori school and a KIPP school will (almost certainly) use differing strategies to reach that goal.

We should think about our students’ prior knowledge. The best way to measure that knowledge might be different for students with diagnosed learning differences.

Yes: we should consider these nine topics. But the ways we answer them must depend on our students, our schools, our curriculum, and ourselves.

For all these reasons, I recommend Chew and Cerbin’s article with great enthusiasm.

And, happily, you can meet Dr. Chew at our online conference in February! (In case you’re wondering: I was planning to write about this article before I knew he was joining the conference. A happy synchronicity.)

It’s All in the Timing: Improving Study Skills with Just-Right Reminders
Andrew Watson
Andrew Watson
July-07-2022

It’s All in the Timing: Improving Study Skills with Just-Right Reminders

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Some research-based teaching advice requires complex rethinking of our work.

For instance:

We know that “desirable difficulties” like spacing and interleaving help students learn. At the same time, this strategy might require a fair amount of reorganization in our unit plans.

On the other hand, today’s suggestions could hardly be simpler. They go like this:

First: encourage students to use a straightforward self-talk strategy (see below).

Second: remind them frequently.

The likely result; they’ll learn more!

The First Step: A Self-Talk Strategy

Our students often know what they should do. But, they struggle to make themselves do it.

So many plausible excuses. So many reasons NOT to follow through!

Over two decades ago, researchers devised a remarkably simple way to redirect those excuses: “if-then” statements.

The strategy goes like this:

The student starts by setting a goal.

“I want to read 15 pages of the novel.”

She then lists the likely problems that could interfere with that goal.

“My dog could distract me.”

“I could get bored.”

“I could get a text.”

Next, she lists solutions to those likely problems — phrased as “if-then” statements.

“If my dog distracts me, then I’ll ask my brother to play with him.”

“If my phone buzzes, then I’ll turn it off and give it to my parents.”

We have good research suggesting that this “if-then” structure creates highly beneficial mental shortcuts.

At the moment of distraction, the student doesn’t have to decide what to do. She has already decided; she simply has to execute the plan she made for herself.

This strategy sounds too simple to work. But, we’ve got good research suggesting it does.

A Second Step: Well-timed Reminders

So far, this strategy could hardly be simpler. Students set goals, make “if-then” plans, and get to work.

A recent study asks a useful question: how often should teachers remind students about these “if-then” plans?

Here’s a useful analogy:

When you take a medication, you probably don’t take all of it all at once. Instead, you probably take one pill a day — or something like that. The whole course of medication is divided into doses.

Well, should teachers divide this strategy into doses? Does it matter how often we prescribe this study “medication”?

Researchers, led by Dr. Jasmin Breitwieser, explored these questions with medical students in Germany.

The details of the study get complicated quickly. But the headlines go like this:

Students in the control group set daily study goals, but did not make if-then statements.

Students in the study group also set daily goals, and “internalized” this statement:

If I am thinking about stopping [before I reach my goal], then I will tell myself that I will continue to answer questions until I have reached my intended workload!

Students in this second group got reminders on various schedules — as many as 3 days in a row, and as many as 3 days without a reminder.

So: what did the researchers find?

Results Please

First: Breitwieser’s team found that students who made the if-then commitments scored higher on the exam than those who didn’t. *

Second — an this is the big news: dosing mattered.

When students got several reminders in a row, they reached more of their goals.

When those same students got no reminders for 3 days in a row, they reached less of their goals.

In other words: if-then statements help students achieve — especially if they recommit to them frequently.

Teaching Implications

Teachers really struggle to help students find motivation in their school work.

This if-then strategy provides a remarkably simple way to help students achieve their own goals.

So, suggestion #1: teachers should take time to help students formulate these if-then statements.

Suggestion #2: one dose isn’t enough. We should have students return to these plans frequently.

The exact schedule will depend, I suspect, on your specific circumstances. It will be different for 1st graders, 5th graders, and 9th graders. It will be different depending on your school and your culture, and perhaps even your approach to teaching.

Based on other research pools, I suggest that the reminders be relatively frequent, but unpredictable. We don’t want our students going through this process by rote; they should engage with it as earnestly as possible each time.

If we get the dosing right, this simple strategy can help our students study more effectively — and therefore learn more.

* The difference was quite small: only 2 points. However, and this is a big however, the researchers worked with medical students preparing for a high-stakes exam. They are already highly successful and highly motivated students. I suspect we’ll see more dramatic effects for other groups of students.

Breitwieser, J., Neubauer, A. B., Schmiedek, F., & Brod, G. (2021). Self-regulation prompts promote the achievement of learning goals–but only briefly: Uncovering hidden dynamics in the effects of a psychological intervention. Learning and Instruction, 101560.

 

An Amazingly Simple Way to Help Struggling Students (with Potential Controversy)
Andrew Watson
Andrew Watson
July-03-2022

An Amazingly Simple Way to Help Struggling Students (with Potential Controversy)

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Imagine that you work at a school where these students consistently struggle compared to those students.

As teachers and school leaders, you’d like to help these students do better than they currently do; maybe do as well as those students. (Lower down in the post, I’ll say more about the two groups of students.)

What can you do?

Values Affirmation

One simple strategy has gotten a fair amount of research in recent years.

The idea goes something like this. If I am, say, a 12-year-old student, I might not really see how my school life fits with the rest of my life. They seem like two different world.

If teachers could connect those “two different worlds” — even a little bit — students would feel more comfortable, less stressed, better invested. Heck, they might even learn more.

To accomplish this mission, researchers provide students a list of values: loyalty, faith, friendship, hard work, justice, happiness, family, and so forth.

They then have students undertake a brief writing assignment. The instructions go something like this:

Choose one or more of these values that are most important for you personally. Write about why they are important. You won’t be graded on spelling or grammar; focus on explaining your ideas, values, and beliefs clearly.

The control group gets the same instructions, except that students choose values “that are the least important for you personally, but might be important to someone else.”

This strategy gets the somewhat lumpy name “values affirmation” — because it gives students a chance to affirm the values they hold.

This approach has been used in the United States in several studies, and has had some success. (See, for instance, here).

Across the Atlantic

But: would this strategy work elsewhere? What about, say, England?

Back in 2019, a group of researchers tried this approach with different groups of underperforming students. (Again, more on this topic below.)

They had two groups of 11-14-year-old students (the underperformers, the typical performers) do three “values affirmation” writing sessions: one in September, one in January, and one in April.

Of course, one half of both groups did the “values affirmation” version of the writing exercises; the other half did the control writing assignment.

What results did they find?

As was true in the US, the values affirmation writings had no effect on the typical performers.

However, it had a dramatic effect on the underperformers. Their math grades were higher at the end of the year (compared to the group that did the control writing). And their stress levels were considerably lower.

Because of the statistical method that the researchers used, I can’t say that values affirmation translated a B average into an A average. I can say that it had an effect size of 0.35 standard deviations — which is certainly noteworthy, especially to people who read research studies in this field.

In brief: this strategy costs literally zero dollars. It takes one hour over the course of a school year. And it helps underperforming students.

SO MUCH TO LOVE.

The Story Behind the Story

Up to this point, I’ve described what the researchers did. But I haven’t explained the psychological theory behind their strategy — because the theory prompts some controversy.

Now that we’ve looked at the strategy, let’s get to that theory.

Back in 1995, Claude Steele proposed a theory that has come to be called “Stereotype Threat.” It proposes a complex and counter-intuitive hypothesis.

To describe the theory, let me make up a non-existent stereotype: “blue-eyed people are bad at grammar.” (For the record, I’m regularly complimented on my blue eyes, and I teach a lot of grammar.)

Why might a blue-eyed student struggle on a grammar test?

Steele’s research suggests a surprising internal process. When my blue eyes and I sit down to take the grammar test, I know the material well. However, I also know that stereotypes suggest I’ll do badly.

What happens? I do NOT (as many suspect) give in and let the stereotype become a self-fulfilling prophecy. Instead, I decide to fight back. And, in a terrible paradox, my determination to disprove the stereotype leads to all sorts of counter-productive academic behaviors.

For instance: I might spend lots of time working on a very easy problem to prove that I know this grammar. Alas, I took so long on the easy problems that I don’t have time for the harder ones.

In this unexpected way, Steele argues, stereotypes harm students’ learning.

Enter the Controversy

Over the years, many researchers explored Stereotype Threat. They found that stereotypes about almost anything (race, ethnicity, gender, sexuality, academic major) can affect performance on almost anything (math tests, sports performance, leadership aspirations).

Steele’s book Whistling Vivaldi is, in fact, an unusually easy-to-read book about a complex psychological phenomenon. Many Learning and the Brain speakers (Joshua Aronson, Sian Beilock) have studied and written about ST.

At the same time, other scholars have doubted this entire research field. They point to various statistical and procedural concerns to suggest that, well, there’s no real there there. (If you’re interested in the push back, you can read more here and here.)

Putting It All Together

In the English study I’ve been describing, the relevant stereotype is “people from relatively lower socio-economic status just aren’t as smart as others.” According to the study’s authors, this stereotype is the predominant academic stereotype in England, whereas US stereotypes focus more on race, ethnicity, and gender.

So, in their study, the authors explored the effect of Values Affirmation on students who did (and did not) receive free school lunches: a common proxy for socio-economic status.

Sure enough, Values Affirmation had no effect one way or the other on students who did not receive free lunches. Because they faced fewer stereotypes about their academic performance, they didn’t suffer the harm that ST might cause.

But, for the students who DID receive free lunches, that same writing exercise helped a lot. This strategy made them feel more like they belonged, so they presumably didn’t need to work as hard to disprove stereotypes.

For that reason, as described above, one hour’s worth of writing reduced stressed and increased grades.

TL;DR

This research suggests that a Values Affirmation writing assignment (it’s free!) can help some underperforming students learn more and feel less stress.

And, it also strengthens the case that Stereotype Threat might — despite the concerns about methodology — really be a thing.

Even if that second statement turns out not to be true, the first one is worth highlighting.

Want a simple, low-cost way to help struggling students? We’ve got one…

Hadden, I. R., Easterbrook, M. J., Nieuwenhuis, M., Fox, K. J., & Dolan, P. (2020). Self‐affirmation reduces the socioeconomic attainment gap in schools in England. British Journal of Educational Psychology, 90(2), 517-536.

Sherman, D. K., Hartson, K. A., Binning, K. R., Purdie-Vaughns, V., Garcia, J., Taborsky-Barba, S., … & Cohen, G. L. (2013). Deflecting the trajectory and changing the narrative: how self-affirmation affects academic performance and motivation under identity threat. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 104(4), 591.