Students from disadvantaged backgrounds and students who are the first in their families to attend college are at heightened risk to leave school without a degree. It's not a matter of students coming to school inadequately prepared--something else is at work (e.g., Steele, 1997). It's not merely disheartening for these students, there can be potentially grave financial repercussions for dropping out. 

Most colleges and universities have programs meant to help students with the process of transitioning, and they often focus on practical skills like choosing classes and study strategies on the assumption that navigating academic life is a significant part of the problem.

In the last few years researchers have focused on a quite different approach: offering students a "lay theory" of the college experience. A lay theory is a set of beliefs that are used to interpret one's experiences. In the case of college, two beliefs have been flagged as especially important: that the transition to college inevitably involves setbacks, and that these setbacks are temporary.

College always includes disappointments, both academic and social. A student fails a test, or a callous professor tells them that their writing is beyond hope. (My freshman year of college an English professor wrote this as the entire comment on my exam essay: "No. D" Students get lonely, and have trouble making friends.  For students who grew up in families where it was always assumed that they would attend college, such disappointments are dispiriting, but not threatening. The student may even wonder if he or she belongs in college, but that doubt likely doesn't last. For a student who did not grow up in an environment where it was taken for granted that they would graduate college that doubt may persist. They may think that they are not smart enough to succeed, that they are "not college material," or that their cultural background is not compatible with college. 

Researchers have sought ways to instill a lay theory of college that would change that interpretation, focusing on two ideas: setbacks in college are common  (and therefore should not be taken as a sign that you don't belong) and setbacks are temporary (so things will get better). 

Researchers have had some success with this intervention in smaller experiments (Stephens et al, 2014; Walton & Cohen, 2011. Now a new study (Yeager et al, 2016) suggests that a simple, inexpensive intervention works at scale. 

Before they matriculated at college, students participated in an activity taking just 30 minutes, administered over the Internet. They were told that it was to help them think about the transition to college, and that they would have the chance to share their experiences, perhaps helping future students. 

There were three experimental conditions. The social belonging condition provided information showing that feeling out of place is common in the transition to college, but most students do make friends and succeed academically. The growth mindset condition provided information showing that intelligence is malleable, and that student can succeed with effort, coupled with effective strategies. The third condition combined both strategies. In each case, students were asked to write an essay about how the information they read might apply to them, as a way of cementing the information in memory, and to help them imagine making it applicable to their own experience.

One experiment targeted the entering class of a large public university. As shown in the table below, the intervention improved retention. All three of the intervention conditions were equally effective. 

Another experiment administered the intervention at a selective private university. The figure shows that disadvantaged students receiving the intervention earned higher GPAs in their first year of college 

Consistent with the theory, advantaged students don't benefit from the intervention; they already believe that they can succeed at college, and that they belong there, so their lay theory of college is likely already similar to the one described in the intervention.

Two things are noteworthy about this experiment. First, the reduction in the achievement gap is quite sizable, on the order of 30-40%. Second, this intervention was remarkably brief, and remarkably inexpensive. Obviously this work needs to be replicated and the interventions fine-tuned. (The growth mindset intervention didn't really work in Experiment 1.) But if this finding holds up, it must be counted as a huge success for social scientists, and for David Yeager and Greg Walton in particular. 

If you follow education matters you know that the home environment in very early years are vital. One aspect of that home environment is the language infants and toddlers hear at home.

The groundbreaking work of Hart & Risley (1995; replicated by others, e.g. Huttenlocher et al, 2010) showed that socio-economic status of the parents is correlated with vast differences in the amount and complexity of language that children hear at home. 

But what aspect of this speech is important? Does speech need to be directed to children? Perhaps all that’s needed is for children to be in the presence of this more complex language. After all, we know that children do not learn language via instruction; they learn it by observation.

Three studies published in the last couple of years build a convincing case that parents should, indeed, talk to their children. Talking in the presence of their children (but to others) does not confer the same vocabulary benefit.

In the most recent study (Weisleder & Fernald, 2013), experimenters tested 29 Spanish-learning infants at age 19 months. The children wore a small device that made an audio recording of all speech to which the child was exposed. The audio recordings were analyzed by software meant to differentiate speech directed toward the child versus speech audible to the child, but directed to others. A subset of recordings was coded by human observers to ensure the accuracy of the software.

Recordings of a full day’s speech were analyzed and the results showed a huge range in child-directed speech; caregivers in one family spoke over 12,000 words to the child whereas in another family that figure was just 670 words. The amount of child-directed speech as not significantly correlated (r = .17) with the amount of overheard speech.

At 24 months the productive vocabulary of the children was measured by asking the parents to judge words that they believed their child understood and words that their child used.

Of greatest interest, the amount of child-directed speech at 19 months was correlated (r = .57) with vocabulary at 24 months. The amount of overheard speech at 19 months was not (r = .25).

The sample size in this study is limited and there were some quirky features. (E.g., the software sorting “child-directed” vs. overherd speech is good, but not perfect.) But my confidence in the conclusion is bolstered by reports of the same finding from another lab, investigating speakers of other languages: English (Schneidman et al, 2013) and Yucatec (Schneidman & Goldin-Meadow, 2012).

Why must speech be directed to the child?

Weisleder & Fernald administered another task at 19 months meant to measure word processing efficiency. They speculated that the effect of child-directed speech on vocabulary was mediated through efficiency—something like, for example, the speed and accuracy with which the particular phonemes of the child’s language are processed.

This doesn’t fully explain the difference between child-directed and overheard speech. The obvious hypothesis is that other cues (e.g. eye gaze direction) prompt greater attention to speech that is child-directed, and that attention is necessary to build efficiency.

More details will have to await further research. For now, we can say with greater confidence “talk to your children” not just “talk in the presence of your children.”

References

Hart, B. M., & Risley, T. R. (1995). Meaningful differences in the everyday experience of young American children. Baltimore, MD: Brookes.

Huttenlocher, J., Waterfall, H., Vasilyeva, M., Vevea, J., & Hedges, L. V. (2010). Sources of variability in children’s language growth. Cognitive Psychology, 61, 343–365.

Shneidman, L. A., Arroyo, M. E., Levine, S., & Goldin-Meadow, S. (2013). What counts as effective input for word learning? Journal of Child Language, 40, 672–686.

Shneidman, L. A., & Goldin-Meadow, S. (2012). Language input and acquisition in a Mayan village: How important is directed speech? Developmental Science, 15, 659–673.

Weisleder, A. & Fernald, A. (2013). Talking to children matters: Early language experience strengthens processing and builds vocabulary. Psychological Science, DOI: 10.1177/0956797613488145

If the title of this blog struck you as brash, I came by it honestly: it's the title of a terrific new paper by three NYU researchers (Protzko, Aronson & Blair, 2013). The authors sought to review all interventions meant to boost intelligence, and they cast a wide net, seeking any intervention for typically-developing children from birth to kindergarten age that used a standard IQ test as the outcome measure, and that was evaluated in a random control trial (RCT) experiment.

A feature of the paper I especially like is that none of the authors publish in the exact areas they review. Blair mostly studies self-regulation, and Aronson, gaps due to race, ethnicity or gender. (Protzko is a graduate student studying with Aronson.) So the paper is written by people with a lot of expertise, but who don't begin their review with a position they are trying to defend. They don't much care which way the data come out.

So what did they find? The paper is well worth reading in its entirety--they review a lot in just 15 pages--but there are four marquee findings.

First, the authors conclude that infant formula supplemented with long chain polyunsaturated fatty acids boosts intelligence by about 3.5 points, compared to formula without. They conclude that the same boost is observed if pregnant mothers receive the supplement. There are not sufficient data to conclude that other supplements--riboflavin, thiamine, niacin, zinc, and B-complex vitamins--have much impact, although the authors suggest (with extreme caution) that B-complex vitamins may prove helpful.

Second, interactive reading with a child raises IQ by about 6 points. The interactive aspect is key; interventions that simply encouraged reading or provided books had little impact. Effective interventions provided information about how to read to children: asking open-ended questions, answering questions children posed, following children's interests, and so on.

Third, the authors report that sending a child to preschool raises his or her IQ by a little more than 4 points. Preschools that include a specific language development component raise IQ scores by more than 7 points. There were not enough studies to differentiate what made some preschools more effective than others.

Fourth, the authors report on interventions that they describe as "intensive," meaning they involved more than preschool alone. The researchers sought to significantly alter the child's environment to make it more educationally enriching. All of these studies involved low-SES children (following the well-established finding that low-SES kids have lower IQs than their better-off counterparts due to differences in opportunity. I review that literature here.)  Such interventions led to a 4 point IQ gain, and a 7 point gain if the intervention included a center-based component. The authors note the interventions have too many features to enable them to pinpoint the cause, but they suggest that the data are consistent with the hypothesis that the cognitive complexity of the environment may be critical. They were able to confidently conclude (to their and my surprise) that earlier interventions helped no more than those starting later.

Those are the four interventions with the best track record. (Some others fared less well. Training working memory in young children "has yielded disappointing results." )

The data are mostly unsurprising, but I still find the article a valuable contribution. A reliable, easy-to-undertand review on an important topic.

Even better, this looks like the beginning of what the authors hope will be a longer-term effort they are calling the Database on Raising Intelligence--a compendium of RCTs based on interventions meant to boost IQ. That may not be everything we need to know about how to raise kids, but it's a darn important piece, and such a Database will be a welcome tool.

There is a lot of talk these days about STEM--science, technology, engineering, and math--and the teachers of STEM subjects. It would seem self-evident that these teachers, given their skill set, would be in demand in business and industry, and thus would be harder to keep in the classroom.

A new study (Ingersoll & May, 2012) offers some surprising data on this issue.

Using the national Schools and Staffing Survey and the Teacher Follow-Up Survey, they found that science and math teachers have NOT left the field at rates higher than that of other teachers. In this data set (1988-2005)  math teachers and science teachers left teaching at about the same rate as teachers in other subjects: about 6% each year.

Furthermore, when these teachers do leave a school, they are no more likely to take a non-education job than other teachers: about 8% of "leavers" took another job outside of education. Much more common reasons to leave the classroom were retirement (about 15%) or an education job other than teaching (about 17%).

The authors argue that teacher turnover, not teachers leaving the field, is the engine behind staffing problems for math and science classes.

So what prompts teacher turnover?

The authors argue that on this dimension math and science teachers differ. Both groups are, unsurprisingly, motivated by better working conditions and higher salaries, but the former matter more to math teachers, and science teachers care more about the latter.

But in both cases, the result is that math and science teachers tend to leave schools with large percentages of low-incomes kids in order to move to schools with wealthier kids.



Ingersoll, R. M., & May, H. (2012). The magnitude, destinations, and determinants of mathematics and science teacher turnover. Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis, 34,  435-464.