A few years ago, I heard a strange story that was supposedly based on scientific research going around. People were saying that scientific research had proven that dairy companies intentionally added chemicals to cheese to make it addictive. This raised red flags in my mind (and not just because I love cheese) because nothing about that sounded like credible scientific research. Scientists don't tend to use words like "intentional" in official publications. I looked up the paper this story was based on, and it bore no resemblance to the story I was hearing. The paper detailed, not a scientific experiment, but a survey. Its purpose was to find what might contribute to the compulsive eating of some foods. The word addictive wasn't even used in the main paper, but in one footnote, detailing that what a survey participant said. They asked people to tell what foods they ate when they were happy, sad, bored, etc. and looked for trends. Not surprisingly, pizza and macaroni and cheese were at the top of many people's lists. The conclusion of the scientists was that foods high in fat and starch were more likely to be foods that were eaten compulsively. This result was not shocking or correctly reported.
Setting aside that this is one of the dumbest studies anyone has undertaken, my point is that people who knew nothing about science reported that cheese was addictive, and people who read that headline added that it was intentionally addictive. Like a game of telephone, what little scientific validity this survey began with was completely lost by the time the story got to me.
Wondering what this has to do with education? Let me tell you about one that has likely entered your classroom.
I don't allow students to listen to music with earbuds when they are working on things in my class or study hall. I have a variety of reasons for this, from wanting students to be present in their own lives without isolation to my knowledge of working memory and how song lyrics interfere with the retention of knowledge. Students then start telling me that "studies show" that listening to music while studying helps you. They are referring to a study from 1993, which came to be known as The Mozart Effect. The problem is, like the cheese report, they are not basing their argument on the actual research. If you look u the Mozart Effect, you will find a very different story than "listening to music helps you study." First, the research ONLY included Mozart, not music generally. Second, they played Mozart for the studies participants for ten minutes BEFORE assigning tasks to them, not during the task. Third, they only tracked creative solutions to problem-solving, not memory-based tasks. Of course, what got widely reported was "Music makes you smarter," and there are classroom teachers who weren't even born when the study was done still referencing it as though that's what it said. Never mind that there have been about a dozen studies since then saying that music with lyrics interferes with memory-based tasks, especially when listened to through headphones. Most people are either too lazy too look past the headline, or they are unqualified to interpret the published research.
I recently had a conversation with the moderator of the Learning and the Brain Twitter account. I love the things he posts because they don't shy away from things with nuance. They ask questions like, "Does cold calling on students increase class engagement?" and then give answers like, "It turns out, depending on class climate, the experience level of the teacher, and methodology . . . kind of." I love that. People have this weird idea that science leads to all-encompassing answers to every question it addresses, and Learning and the Brain isn't afraid to say, "Hey, wait, context matters." This is an especially good essay on the importance of context.
Does this mean we can't apply scientific research in our classrooms? Of course not. Next week's blog will be about how to adapt scientific educational research to your practice. What it means is that we have to do our homework. We have to look at the method of research, not just the conclusion. Science, when done well, is narrow in scope. It tests one independent variable and draws nuanced conclusions based on the conditions of the experiment (another reason why the cheese article was stupid - sorry, I'm a little bitter about that one). Applying it to your life is even more complex. Don't run from that complexity. Embrace it. Embrace it by reading the full paper, not just the headline. Embrace it by being willing to tell a student they are interpreting the data incorrectly. Embrace it by knowing yourself and what you can and cannot apply in your classroom, school, or district.
No comments:
Post a Comment