Neuromyths in Education: Prevalence among Spanish Teachers and an Exploration of Cross-Cultural Variation.

Marta Ferrero,Miguel A Vadillo,Pablo Garaizar

doi:10.3389/fnhum.2016.00496

Marta Ferrero, Miguel A Vadillo + Show 1 more

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https://doi.org/10.3389/fnhum.2016.00496

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Abstract

Enthusiasm for research on the brain and its application in education is growing among teachers. However, a lack of sufficient knowledge, poor communication between educators and scientists, and the effective marketing of dubious educational products has led to the proliferation of numerous ‘neuromyths.’ As a first step toward designing effective interventions to correct these misconceptions, previous studies have explored the prevalence of neuromyths in different countries. In the present study we extend this applied research by gathering data from a new sample of Spanish teachers and by meta-analyzing all the evidence available so far. Our results show that some of the most popular neuromyths identified in previous studies are also endorsed by Spanish teachers. The meta-analytic synthesis of these data and previous research confirms that the popularity of some neuromyths is remarkably consistent across countries, although we also note peculiarities and exceptions with important implications for the development of effective interventions. In light of the increasing popularity of pseudoscientific practices in schools worldwide, we suggest a set of interventions to address misconceptions about the brain and education.

Highlights

Over the last few decades, the scientific community has shown an increasing interest in building bridges between brain science and education
The enthusiasm for neuroscience has spread amongst educational practitioners (Pickering and Howard-Jones, 2007; Ansari et al, 2012), who see it as great opportunity to improve or enrich their way of teaching (Simmonds, 2014)
The translation of neuroscience research to the education community has not been straightforward (Bruer, 1997; Blakemore and Frith, 2005) and misconceptions about neuroscientific claims are widespread amongst educational practitioners (Goswami, 2006)

Summary

Introduction

Over the last few decades, the scientific community has shown an increasing interest in building bridges between brain science and education. Teachers lack scientific knowledge and skills to critically evaluate neuroscientific claims and distinguish evidence-based from non-evidence-based practices (Lindell and Kidd, 2011; Lilienfeld et al, 2012; Busso and Pollack, 2014) This gap between researchers and practitioners has caused the misinterpretation and oversimplification of scientific research and facilitated the rapid proliferation of several misconceptions about the mind and the brain, known as neuromyths (Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development [OECD], 2002, 2007; Goswami, 2006; Waterhouse, 2006; Geake, 2008; Kalbfleisch and Gillmarten, 2013; HowardJones, 2014). The studies that have addressed other socially relevant misconceptions, like anti-vaccination myths, have found that correcting them is a daunting challenge because misinformation is highly resistant to change (Nyhan et al, 2014; Nyhan and Reifler, 2015)

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