Students still need to learn facts
Factual knowledge still represents the starting point for evaluating arguments, weighing options, and drawing conclusions. These are things that modern societies regularly expect their citizens to do.
Stupid? No. Unfamiliar? Yes. The meaning of low mean IQs in developing nations
Illiterate people’s thinking probably remains grounded in their everyday experience. When these people take a test that solely measures abstract thinking, they perform poorly. This does not make them stupid. Instead, it shows the disconnect between their natural mode of thought and the unfamiliar test content.
The most important graph in educational psychology
The most important graph in educational psychology is buried in an appendix of an article, but it explains so much about how individual differences have important consequences in adulthood. The graph comes from an article by Jonathan Wai and his colleagues (2009, p. 834) and is shown below. The graph is based on data from…
Teachers say the darndest things (about intelligence)
It’s time for a thought experiment! Imagine what would happen if most people working in engineering did not have a correct understanding of the basic principles of physics. Alternatively, ponder what would happen if a majority of physicians had incorrect ideas about biology and the causes of disease. Of course, the result would be disastrous.…
The jangle fallacy: Aptitude ≈ achievement
After my last post about the jingle fallacy, it is impossible to resist talking about the jangle fallacy. In short, the jangle fallacy occurs when a person treats two concepts as being different because there are different words for them. The jangle fallacy occurs because “. . . psychologists can name more things than they…
The jingle fallacy: Why schools should not teach critical thinking or creativity?
Should schools teach lessons on developing general creativity or general critical thinking? Maybe not. I came to this conclusion after reading a superbly written literature review on the effectiveness of cognitive training regimens (Sala & Gobet, 2019). These training programs take a variety of forms, including working memory training, music lessons, chess instruction, and brain…
