Ben Goldacre is a British physician and academic, and is the author of Bad Science, an expose of bad medical practice that is based on wrong-headed science.  For the last decade he has written a terrific column by the same name for the Guardian.

Goldacre has recently turned his critical scientific eye to educational practices in Britain. He was asked by the British Department for Education to comment on the use of scientific data in education and on the current state of affairs in Britain. You can download the report here.

So what does Goldacre say?

He offers an analogy of education to medicine; the former can benefit from the application of scientific methods, just as the latter has.

Goldacre touts the potential of randomised controlled trails (RCTs). You take a group of students and administer an intervention (a new instructional method for long division, say) to one group and not to another. Then you see how each group of students did.

Goldacre also speculates on what institutions would need to do to make the British education system as a whole more research-minded. He names two significant changes;

• There would need to be an institution that communicates the findings of scientific research (similar to the American "What Works Clearinghouse.")
• British teachers would need a better appreciation for scientific research so that they would understand why a particular practice was touted as superior, and could evaluate themselves the evidence for the claim
  

As someone who has written shorter and book-length treatments of the role that scientific research might play in education, I'm very excited that Goldacre has made this thoughtful and spirited contribution.

I offer no criticisms of what Goldacre suggests, but would like to add three points.

First, I agree with Goldacre that randomized trials allow the strongest conclusions. But I don't think that we should emphasize RCTs to the exclusion of all other sources of data. After all, if we continue with Goldacre's analogy to medicine, I think he would agree that epidemiology has proven useful.

As a matter of tactics, note that the What Works Clearinghouse emphasized RCTs to the near exclusion of all other types of evidence, and that came to be seen as a problem. If you exclude other types of studies the available data will likely be thin. RCTs are simply hard to pull off: they are expensive, they require permission from lots of people. Hence, the What Works Clearinghouse ended up being agnostic about many interventions--"no randomized controlled trials yet." Its impact has been minimal.

Other sources of data can be useful; smaller scale studies, and especially, basic scientific work that bears on the underpinnings of an intervention.

We must also remember that each RCT--strictly interpreted--offers pretty narrow information: method A is better than method B (for these kids, as implemented by these teachers, etc.) Allowing other sources of data in the picture potentially offers a richer interpretation.

As a simple example, shouldn't laboratory studies showing the importance of phonemic awareness influence our interpretation of RCTs in preschool interventions that teach phonemic awareness skills?

Second, basic scientific knowledge gleaned from cognitive and developmental psychology (and other fields) can not only help us to interpret the results of randomized trials, that knowledge can be useful to teachers on its own. Just as a physician uses her knowledge of human physiology to diagnose a case, a teacher can use her knowledge of cognition to "diagnose" how to best teach a particular concept to a particular child.

I don't know about Britain, but this information is not taught in most American schools of Education. I wrote a book about cognitive principles that might apply to education. The most common remark I hear from teachers is surprise (and often, anger) that they were not taught these principles when they trained.

Elsewhere I've suggested we need not just a "what works" clearinghouse to evaluate interventions, but a "what's known" clearinghouse for basic scientific knowledge that might apply to education.

Third, I'm uneasy about the medicine analogy. It too easily leads to the perception that science aims to prescribe what teachers must do, that science will identify one set of "best practices" which all must follow. Goldacre makes clear on the very first page of the report that's NOT what he's suggesting, but to the non-doctors among us, we see medicine this way: I go to my doctor, she diagnoses what's wrong, and there is a standard way (established by scientific method) to treat the disease.

That perception may be in error, but I think it's common.

I've suggested a different analogy: architecture. When building a house an architect must respect certain basic facts set out by science. Physics and materials science will loom large for the architect; for educators it might be psychology, sociology et al. The rules represent limiting conditions, but so long as you stay within those boundaries there is lots of ways to get it right. Just as physics doesn't tell the architect what the house must look like, so too cognitive psychology doesn't tell teachers how they must teach.

RCTs play a different role. They provide proof that a standard solution to a common problem is useful. For example, architects routinely face the problem of ensuring that a wall doesn't collapse when a large window is placed in it, and there are standard solutions to this problem. Likewise, educators face common problems, and RCTs hold the promise of providing proven solutions. Just as the architect doesn't have to use any of the standard methods, the teacher needn't use a method proven by an RCT. But the architect needs be sure that the wall stays up, and the teacher needs to be sure that the child learns.

I made one of my garage-band-quality videos on this topic.

There's more to this topic--what it will mean to train teachers to evaluate scientific evidence, the role of schools of education. Indeed, there's more in Goldacre's report and I urge you to read it. Longer term, I urge you to consider why we wouldn't want better use of science in educational practice.

Illiteracy and its costs to individuals and to society has long been a focus of concern in public policy. A corresponding lack of ability in mathematics--innumeracy--has received increasing attention in the last few decades. The ability to use basic math is more and more important as modern day society grows more complex.

Some children have a problem in learning to read that is disproportionate to any other academic challenge they face. Some children have a corresponding problem with math. For some reason, the ideas just don't come together for these students.

In a recent article, David Geary (2013) reviews evidence that one cause of the problem may be a fundamental deficit in the representation of numerosity.

Geary describes three possible sources of a problem in children's appreciation of number.

To appreciate where the problems may lie, you need to know about the approximate number system.  All children (and members of many other species) are born with an ability to appreciate numerosity. The approximate number system does not support precise counting, but allows for comparison judgements of "more than" or "less than." For example, in the figure below you can tell at a glance (and without counting) which cloud contains more dots.

This ability --making the comparison without counting--is supported by the approximate number system. (Formal experiments control for things like the total amount of "dot material" in each field, and so on.)

The ability depends on not on the absolute difference in number of dots, but on the ratio. Adults can discriminate ratios as low as 11:10. Infants can perform this task, but the ratio of the difference in dots must be much greater, closer to 2:1.

Many researchers believe that this approximate number system is the scaffold for an understanding of the cardinal values of number.

So the first possible source of problems in mathematics may be that the approximate number system does not develop at a typical pace, leaving the child slow to develop the cognitive representations of quantity that can support mathematics.

A second possibility is that the approximate number system works just find, but the problem lies in associating symbols (number names and arabic numerals) to the quantities represented there. Geary speculates that regulating attention may be particularly important to this ability.

Finally, It is possible for children to appreciate the cardinal value of numbers and yet not understand the logical relationships among those numbers, to appreciate the structure as a whole. That's the the third possible problem.

Geary suggests that there is at least suggestive evidence that each of these potential problems creates trouble for some students.

The analogy to dyslexia is irresistible, and not inappropriate. Math, like reading, is not a "natural" human activity. It is a cultural contrivance, and the cognitive apparatus to support it must be hijacked from mental systems meant to support other activities.

As such, it is fragile, meaning it lacks redundancy. If something goes wrong, the system as a whole functions very poorly. Thus, understanding how things might go wrong is essential to helping children who struggle early on.

Gear, D. (2013) Early foundations for mathematics learning and their relations to learning disabilities. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 22, 23-27.

We are in the midst of an effort to explore what the new technologies enabled by powerful computing and reliable long-distance connection will mean to higher education. (There is, of course, a parallel effort in K-12, but that’s another topic.)

A new entrant is poised to make a bid, and it’s worth some study.

The Minerva Project was initiated by Ben Nelson, the man behind Snapfish (a photo website). His vision is of a university that offers an “uniquely rigorous and challenging university education." (At a price, we might add, that is a relative bargain--reportedly, the target cost is something like half of what the Ivys charge).

The idea is that classes will be delivered via video, and students will then engage in discussion and debate. Importantly, and in pointed contrast to MOOCs, class size will be limited to 25.

Because the university is virtual, students can live anywhere, but they will be encouraged to live in a different world city each semester, perhaps living together to gain some of the face-to-face interactions that many observers consider a significant advantage of bricks-and-mortar university life.

The curriculum will not rest on traditional academic subject divisions (some English, some math, some science) but rather on four essential skills: critical thinking, use of data, understanding complex systems, and effective communication. If that sounds squishy, be forewarned that the courses are planned to be demanding, and students who do not perform well will (gasp) fail the course.

Minerva is trying something quite different than other online higher ed options. Online universities exist, but their appeal has been their low price and low academic standards and, to a lesser extent, flexibility in scheduling. They claim to offer a degree that is comparable to a traditional degree, though few believe that they do.

It’s still not completely obvious how MOOCs (as implemented in Coursera and edX) will evolve, but no one thinks the long-term purpose is to give away courses. The interpretation I hear most often is that they will not seek replace standard degrees, but will offer more of an a la carte education; you take, say, 12 engineering courses (earning certificates showing that you’ve done the work) in the hopes that the reputation of the participating institutions will be enough to persuade an employer that passing the courses means you’ve got the chops for a job—and you’ve paid just a tiny fraction of what a traditional engineering degree would have cost.

Minerva seeks a third way. It promises an elite education, comparable to the most selective schools in the US. They are gambling that this option will appeal to students who were qualified to attend a big-name university, but didn’t get in.

It’s a darn good bet that there are plenty of frustrated students who thought they had the record for admission to Big-Name U; these places reject 75% or more of their applicants.

It’s no accident that the Minerva website notes that admissions decisions will disregard “lineage, state or country of origin, athletic prowess, or ability to donate.” In other words, "if you fear that you will be jostled by affirmative action targets, athletic admissions, legacies, etc., apply here."

The question is whether these students will see Minerva as a viable alternative to traditional schools.  

Naturally, that will depend on the quality of the courses and the curriculum. Minerva has not hired any faculty yet, but Nelson has some high profile members on his board (Larry Summers, Bob Kerrey) and they just hired Steve Kosslyn as the founding Dean of the College. Kosslyn has been a Dean at Harvard and was most recently Director of the Center for Advanced Study of Behavioral Sciences at Stanford. To lure someone that capable to devote all of his energies to Minerva bodes well for the project.

We may be seeing the first of new wave of elite colleges. In the colonial era and following, this country saw elite colleges founded to train clergy (Harvard, Yale, Princeton). Better than a century later there was another spate, as wealthy industrialists founded new schools or heavily endowed existing ones (U of Chicago, Stanford, Vanderbilt).

There may well be room for a new model of elite higher education, and Minerva, as the first one out of the gate, holds a significant advantage.  

Note:  Thanks to Chris Chabris, whose Facebook post made me aware of Minerva.

Readers of this blog are probably aware of the research, pioneered by Carol Dweck, showing that certain types of praise--especially praise that focuses on who the child is, rather than what the child has done--can have counter-intuitive effects.

A new report (Brummelman et al, 2013) shows that the consequences of certain praise for kids with low self-esteem can be particularly destructive.

In experiment 1, 357 Dutch-speaking parents (87% mothers) read brief descriptions of children, some with high self-esteem ("Lisa usually likes the kind of person she is") and some with low ("Sarah is often unhappy with herself.") Parents were asked to describe what they would say in response to something the child was described as having done (e.g., "she has just made a beautiful drawing.")

Responses were coded as praising the child's personal qualities (e.g., "You're such a good drawer") or the child's behaviors (""you did a good job drawing!"), other praise (e.g., "beautiful!") or no praise.

The figure shows an interaction--children with high self-esteem were less likely to receive person praise than children with low self-esteem. Children with high self-esteem were more likely to receive process praise.

Experiment 2 examined whether children with high or low self-esteem respond differently to person praise.

313 children (mean age about 10.5 yrs) completed a standard measure of self-esteem. Several days later at their school, they performed a computer task that (they were told) pitted them against an opponent from another school to see who had faster reactions. They were told that a webmaster would monitor the competitors' performance. (In fact, there was no competitor or webmaster; everything was controlled by the computer.)

After a practice round the webmaster gave either process praise ("wow, you did a great job!"), person praise ("wow, you're great!") or no praise to the subject.

Next, the subject played against their "opponent" and were told that he or she won or lost.

Finally, subjects were asked to rate "how you feel, right now" by agreeing or disagreeing with adjectives like "ashamed," and "humiliated." (They had made similar ratings before the game.)

The graph shows difference scores, based on the two measures of shame (taken before and after the reaction time game).

As you would expect, the students who were told they won (the open figures in the graph) didn't feel much shame. Students told they lost (closed figures) felt more.

In addition, the students receiving person praise feel more shame, overall, but crucially, all of this effect is due to the students with low self esteem.  They are represented by that highest point on the graph at the upper left.

The effect size is pretty substantial--around d = .5

So it seems that the person praise makes the children with low-self-esteem feel more invested in the game, more like they have something at stake. So when they lose, they feel more shame. The high-self esteem students, in contrast, shrug off the loss, even after the person praise because they generally feel more secure about their abilities.

The message, coupled with the result from Experiment 1, is that adults are biased to do exactly the wrong thing--try to "buck up" kids with low-self esteem by offering person praise ("you're a great kid!") when these children will actually suffer more after a failure if they have received this praise.

The interpretation hangs together, to my mind, but I'd like to see this effect replicated. In particular, the measure of shame seemed heavy-handed. As far as I can tell, students were not asked about other feelings, just those related to shame, so there is a really chance that demand characteristics played a role. (That is, that students were reacting as they thought the experimenter expected them to, not necessarily as they felt.)

Still, an interesting, possibly important experiment.

Reference: Brummelman, E., Thomaes, S., Overbeek, G., Orobio de Castro, B., van den Hout, M. A., & Bushman, B. J. (2013). On Feeding Those Hungry for Praise: Person Praise Backfires in Children With Low Self-Esteem. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General. Advance online publication: doi: 10.1037/a0031917