A teacher from the UK has just written to me asking for a bit of clarification (EDIT: the email came from Sue Cowley, who is actually a teacher trainer.)

She says that some people are taking my writing on the experiments that have tested predictions of learning styles theories (see here) as implying that teachers ought not to use these theories to inform their practice.

Her reading of what I've written on the subject differs: she thinks I'm suggesting that although the scientific backing for learning styles is absent, teachers may still find the idea useful in the classroom.

The larger issue--the relationship of basic science to practice--is complex enough that I thought it was worth writing a book about it. But I'll describe one important aspect of the problem here.

There are two methods by which one might use learning styles theories to inspire ones practice. The way that scientific evidence bears on these two methods is radically different.

Method 1: Scientific evidence on children's learning is consistent with how I teach.

Teachers inevitably have a theory--implicit or explicit--of how children learn. This theory influences choices teachers make in their practice. If you believe that science provides a good way to develop and update your theory of how children learn, then the harmony between this theory and your practice is one way that you build your own confidence that you're teaching effectively. (It is not, of course, the only source of evidence teachers would consider.)

It would seem, then, that because learning styles theories have no scientific support, we would conclude that practice meant to be consistent with learning styles theories will inevitably be bad practice.

It's not that simple, however. "Inevitably" is too strong. Scientific theory and practice are just not that tightly linked.

It's possible to have effective practices motivated by a theory that lacks scientific support. For example, certain acupuncture treatments were initially motivated by theories entailing chakras--energy fields for which scientific evidence is lacking. Still, some treatments motivated by the theory are known to be effective in pain management.

But happy accidents like acupuncture are going to be much rarer than cases in which the wrong theory leads to practices that are either a waste of time or are actively bad. As long as we're using time-worn medical examples, let's not forget the theory of four humors.

Bottom line for Method 1: learning styles theories are not accurate representations of how children learn. Although they are certainly not guaranteed to lead to bad practice, using them as a guide is more likely to degrade practice than improve it.

Method 2: Learning styles as inspiration for practice, not evidence to justify practice.

In talking with teachers, I think this second method is probably more common. Teachers treat learning styles theories not as sacred truth about how children learn, but as a way to prime the creativity pump, to think about new angles on lesson plans.

Scientific theory is not the only source of inspiration for classroom practice. Any theory (or more generally, anything) can be a source of inspiration.

What's crucial is that the inspirational source bears no evidential status for the practice.

In the case of learning styles a teacher using this method does not say to himself "And I'll do this because then I'm appealing to the learning styles of all my students," even if the this was an idea generated by learning styles. The evidence that this is a good idea comes from professional judgment, or because a respected colleague reported that she found it effective, or whatever.

Analogously, I may frequently think about Disneyland when planning lessons simply because I think Disneyland is cool and I believe I often get engaging, useful ideas of classroom activities when I think about Disneyland. Disneyland is useful to me, but it doesn't represent how kids learn.

Bottom line for Method 2: Learning styles theories might serve as an inspiration for practice, but it holds no special status as such; anything can inspire practice.

The danger, of course, lies in confusing these two methods. It would never occur to me that a Disneyland-inspired lesson is a good idea because Disneyland represents how kids think. But that slip-of-the-mind might happen with learning styles theories and indeed, it seems to with some regularity.

Suppose a high school student cheats on a test. How harshly should a parent or teacher treat this offense? The efficacy of punishment in such situations has been controversial, and a new study sheds some light on the consequences of punitive control in moral matters.

When someone behaves immorally, a psychologist would typically say that the individual has not internalized the moral norm; that is, she may profess that an action is morally wrong, but she has not really taken that information to heart.

How can a parent or teacher encourage such internalization?

Attribution theories have been quite influential in how psychologists think about this matter. These theories hold that a parent should NOT ensure moral behavior through the use of harsh or punitive measures.

Doing so will gain compliance because the child will want to avoid punishment, but the child will not internalize the norm. He will attribute his "good" behavior not to his own belief in the moral precept, but to the desire to avoid punishment.

That theory would predict, then, that once the threat of punishment is removed, these children will engage in the forbidden behavior. That prediction is born out in research.

But another prediction of the theory is wrong. If children have not internalized the moral precept, they should feel no shame if they break the rule. But they do feel ashamed.

Sana Sheik and Ronnie Janoff-Bulman (2013) sought to resolve this paradox.

Their hypothesis: punitive parenting on moral matters does lead children to internalize the moral precept (hence the shame). But it also paradoxically makes children less well equipped to resist temptation (hence the tendency to engage in the immoral behavior).

Why would it be harder to resist temptation? Well, imagine that I say to you "Hey, it would probably be better if you didn't think about white bears." The idea of a white bear would flash in your mind, but you'd soon think about something else.

But suppose I said "FOR THE LOVE OF GOD AND ALL THAT IS HOLY, DON'T THINK ABOUT A WHITE BEAR, I BEG OF YOU." By making it such a charged request, I have paradoxically made it harder to not think about a white bear.

That's the theory. The experimental data seem to support it, although the logic is a little convoluted.

First, subjects were asked to fill out a questionnaire about discipline used by their parents. Responses were used to judge the extent to which parents were punitive about moral matters. (This use of questionnaires is common in this literature.)

Second, experimenters asked subjects to write out moral precepts; some subjects wrote about positive precepts (things that you should do) or proscriptive ones (things you should not do). They did this to prime subjects, that is, to get them thinking about these moral issues.

They varied the type of precept (positive or proscriptive) because harsh parental control is virtually always directed at moral proscriptions.

Third, they asked subjects to briefly describe the action depicted in some paintings. These paintings (like the one shown at left) are emotionally ambiguous--they are open to a wide range of interpretations. Crucially, subjects in the experiment were also told "Please do NOT use any words related to bad, immoral, undesirable behaviors, intentions, or outcomes (e.g., sneaky)."

Here's the idea. subjects who had first been prompted to think about moral proscriptions would be thinking about moral proscriptions when they saw the paintings, but they were told NOT to use those thoughts in describing the paintings. Inhibiting those thoughts would presumably "cost" them--their resources for regulating attention would be somewhat depleted. And that should be especially true for students whose parents were punitive about moral matters because such issues are hyper-charged for them.

How could you show that their attentional resources were depleted from the struggle to not think about moral proscriptions?

In the final phase of the experiment, the researchers administered a STROOP task--that's the task in which subjects are asked to name ink colors while refraining from mistakenly saying the color names spelled out. Doing so requires attention regulation, and the more tired you are from inhibiting the immoral descriptions of the paintings, the worse you'll do on the STROOP task.

And, as predicted, subjects whose parents were punitive were worse on the STROOP task than subjects whose parents were not.

But maybe kids with punitive parents are bad at the STROOP for other reasons. Maybe these just happen to be kids who lack attentional resources. In fact, maybe that's why they often got in trouble, and that's why their parents had to be kind of hard on them.

That's why the experimenters also included a condition where subjects were asked to think about positive moral precepts. Without that prime, everyone should find it easier NOT to think about proscriptive morality. And indeed, subjects whose parents were punitive don't have a particular problem with the STROOP in this condition.

As I promised, the chain of logic supporting the theory is a bit convoluted. Still, the basic account seem plausible.

If further data support the theory, the upshot for parents and teachers would be that harsh responses to moral transgressions won't work. They leave subjects feeling ashamed when they transgress, but paradoxically they make is harder to resist the temptation to transgress.

Shikh, S. & Janoff0Bulman, R. (2013). Paradoxical consequences of prohibitions. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. Advance online publication: doi: 10.1037/a0032278

Most teachers t think that students today have a problem paying attention. They seem impatient, easily bored.

I’ve argued that I think it’s unlikely that they are incapable of paying attention, but rather that they are quick to deem things not worth the effort.

We might wonder if patience would not come easier to a student who had had the experience of sustaining attention in the face of boredom, and then later finding that patience was rewarded. Arguably, digital immigrants were more likely to have learned this lesson. There were fewer sources of distraction and entertainment, and so we were a bit more likely to hang in there with something a little dull.

I remember on several occasions when I was perhaps ten, being sick at home, watching movies on television that seemed too serious for me—but I watched them because there were only three other TV channels. And I often discovered that these movies (which I would have rejected in favor of game shows) were actually quite interesting.

Students today have so many options that being mildly bored can be successfully avoided most of the time.

If this analysis has any truth to it, how can digital natives learn that patience sometimes brings a reward?

Jennifer Roberts, a professor of the History of Art and Architecture at Harvard, has a suggestion.

She gave a fantastic talk on the subject at a conference hosted by the Harvard Initiative on Learning and Teaching (more here).

Roberts asks her students to select a painting from a Boston museum, on which they are to write an in-depth research paper.

Then the student must go the museum and study the painting. For three hours.

The duration, “meant to seem excessive” in Roberts’ words, is, of course, part of the point. The goal is that the student think “Okay, I’ve seen about all I’m going to see in this painting.” But because they must continue looking, they see more. And more. And more. Patience is rewarded.

Roberts gave an example from her own experience. As part of a book she was writing on 18th century American painter John Singleton Copley, she studied at length the painting A Boy With a Flying Squirrel. Although she is, obviously, an extremely experienced observer of art, Roberts noted that it was many minutes before she noticed that the shape of the white ruff on the squirrel matches the shape of the boy’s ear, and is echoed again in the fold of the curtain over his left shoulder.

If we are concerned that students today are too quick to allow their attention to be yanked to the brightest object (or to willfully redirect it once their very low threshold of boredom is surpassed), we need to consider ways that we can bring home to them the potential reward of sustained attention.

They need to feel the pleasure of discovering that something you thought you had figured out actually has layers that you had not appreciated.

That may not be the 21st century skill of greatest importance, but it may be the one in shortest supply.