{"id":4267,"date":"2019-02-18T08:00:54","date_gmt":"2019-02-18T13:00:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/braindevs.net\/blog\/blog\/?p=4267"},"modified":"2019-02-07T14:11:33","modified_gmt":"2019-02-07T19:11:33","slug":"is-your-classroom-worth-more-than-10000","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.learningandthebrain.com\/blog\/is-your-classroom-worth-more-than-10000\/","title":{"rendered":"Is Your Classroom Worth More Than $10,000?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Here’s<\/a> a remarkable story about potentially falsified research data.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The short version: researchers James Heathers and Nick Brown<\/a> thought that\u00a0Nicolas Gu\u00e9guen’s research findings were both too sexy<\/em> and too tidy<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Too sexy<\/strong>: Gu\u00e9guen’s findings regularly made great headlines. For instance, his research shows that men voluntarily assist women who wear their hair loose<\/em> much more than those who wear it in a ponytail or a bun<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Talk about your gender-roles clickbait!<\/p>\n

Too tidy<\/strong>: As Heathers and Brown considered\u00a0Gu\u00e9guen’s math, they realized that his numbers were…too round. When\u00a0Gu\u00e9guen calculated averages, he had to divide by 30 — because his study groups had 30 people in them.<\/p>\n

But, his results often ended in improbably round figures:\u00a0 1.60, 1.80, 2.80.<\/p>\n

Mathematically speaking, that’s possible. But, when you’re dividing by 30, it’s wildly unlikely.<\/p>\n

Heathers and Brown have now spent quite a long time — years, in fact — trying to get\u00a0Gu\u00e9guen to share his data and\/or answer their questions.<\/p>\n

As far as I know, they haven’t gotten answers yet. (Here’s a somewhat more recent article<\/a>.)<\/p>\n

What Teachers Should Do<\/h2>\n

First<\/strong>, keep in mind that scientists are people too. While most strive honorably to follow procedures and discover meaningful findings, a few will always cheat the system and abuse our trust.<\/p>\n

That’s true in any profession. It’s true in psychology and neuroscience research. (It might even be true of teachers.)<\/p>\n

Second<\/strong>, let this knowledge energize your skepticism.<\/p>\n

Here’s my suggestion: never make changes to your classroom work without asking hard questions.<\/p>\n

Think about it this way: if someone wanted to sell you something for $10,000, you’d needs lots of confirmation. You wouldn’t take the seller’s word that the product was worth $10k. You’d investigate on your own<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

For instance, ask…<\/p>\n

Have other<\/em> researchers gotten similar findings?<\/p>\n

How aggressively have they tried to disprove<\/em> them?<\/p>\n

Is the suggestion strongly confirming a bias that everyone already holds?<\/p>\n

So: your classroom is worth more than $10,000. You wouldn’t buy an expensive product without asking hard questions. Don’t adopt research suggestions without asking hard questions.<\/p>\n

In the meanwhile, I’m going to put my hair up in a bun.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Here’s a remarkable story about potentially falsified research data. The short version: researchers James Heathers and Nick Brown thought that\u00a0Nicolas Gu\u00e9guen’s research findings were both too sexy and too tidy. Too sexy: Gu\u00e9guen’s findings regularly made great headlines. For instance, his research shows that men voluntarily assist women who wear their hair loose much more […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":18,"featured_media":4273,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[19],"class_list":["post-4267","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-lb-blog","tag-skepticism"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.learningandthebrain.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4267","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.learningandthebrain.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.learningandthebrain.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.learningandthebrain.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/18"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.learningandthebrain.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4267"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/www.learningandthebrain.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4267\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4276,"href":"https:\/\/www.learningandthebrain.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4267\/revisions\/4276"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.learningandthebrain.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4273"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.learningandthebrain.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4267"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.learningandthebrain.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4267"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.learningandthebrain.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4267"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}