Systematic review of the applied research on how cognitive science is applied in schools by @TWPerry1 and colleagues. Really interesting, I’ll put a few of my thoughts below.
1/ There’s an important distinction between basic research (or pure) and applied research. Basic research looks at cognitive processes and models, and constructs lab tests to pull apart different factors. Applied research is far more messy and harder to control.
2/ Cognitive theories focus on information processing and memory, but in the real world there are many other factors at play, such as student-specific, teacher-specific and environmental factors.
3/ There has been a leap from the basic cognitive science research to practice. The principles have been applied directly to educational practice but without a robust applied research base. There’s a nice diagram in the presentation of this.
4/ Of the different techniques they looked at in this systematic review, all based on cogsci principles, not one could be recommended without caveats. There are few studies - only 43 high quality studies on applied techniques and half of those had a possibility of bias.
5/ The confidence with which the educational applications of cognitive models are presented in popularised books is not reflected in the applied research. There is high confidence in the basic science, but the applied findings are much weaker.
6/ They look at studies on eight different strategies - watch the presentation for the specifics. Most of the studies are in maths and science. Confidence in the effects are usually low. No studies in the early years.
7/ Cognitive science matters - manipulating the principles does seem to make a difference - but teachers should know that the applied evidence is more limited and complex than the popular books imply.
8/ The conversation around cogsci in education is narrow, and it focuses on information processing and individual learning. There is more to the science and more to education.
9/ Some of the high quality applied studies used researcher-led lessons and researcher-designed tests rather than teachers and standardised tests. The studies sometimes made a unrealistic contrast - e.g between worked examples or being left alone to work something out.
10/ ‘There’s a lot we don’t know here and it’s worth not overstating what we do know and making sure teachers have the autonomy to experiment with some of this’.
11/ Summary, applied research is messy and complex, rather like education. Cogsci offers useful ideas but high confidence in a basic model isn’t the same as high confidence in the applied techniques. There is more to education in practice than information processing.
Does the applied research look directly at whether direct instruction is always superior to other ways of learning @TWPerry1? And is there applied research on the biologically primary/biologically secondary distinction, do you know?
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