tag:theconversation.com,2011:/us/topics/academic-performance-28200/articlesAcademic performance – The Conversation2023-08-15T23:36:58Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2112562023-08-15T23:36:58Z2023-08-15T23:36:58ZWhat we get wrong about self-esteem: It’s built through actions, not words<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/542377/original/file-20230811-15-h052af.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=180%2C27%2C5421%2C3773&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">People want quick fixes, but unfortunately, building healthy, realistic, and stable self-esteem isn't that simple.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Pexels/Moose Photos)</span></span></figcaption></figure><iframe style="width: 100%; height: 100px; border: none; position: relative; z-index: 1;" allowtransparency="" allow="clipboard-read; clipboard-write" src="https://narrations.ad-auris.com/widget/the-conversation-canada/what-we-get-wrong-about-self-esteem-its-built-through-actions-not-words" width="100%" height="400"></iframe>
<p>Self-esteem is the sense of value we have for ourselves. It’s how we perceive ourselves: whether we think we are worthy and competent, whether we think we belong, whether we like ourselves.</p>
<p>There’s an entire wellness <a href="https://www.thecut.com/2017/05/self-esteem-grit-do-they-really-help.html">industry dedicated to improving self-esteem</a>, but it often gets things wrong. Standing in front of a mirror and saying “I’m awesome” probably isn’t going to make you feel better about yourself, because <a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-6494.2005.00371.x">self-esteem can be explicit or implicit</a>, and how you consciously think about yourself might not align with how you unconsciously feel about yourself. </p>
<p>People want quick fixes, but unfortunately, building healthy, realistic and stable self-esteem isn’t that simple. </p>
<h2>More than high or low</h2>
<p>Self-esteem is often described as high or low: either we like ourselves and are confident in our abilities (high self-esteem) or we don’t (low self-esteem). </p>
<p>Level of self-esteem is an important measure. Low self-esteem has been linked with <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/0146167298246009">depression</a> and <a href="https://doi.org/10.1037/0021-843X.102.2.297">eating disorders</a> and high self-esteem has been linked with <a href="https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.65.6.1190">defensiveness</a>, <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/40064223">aggression</a> and <a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-6494.2005.00371.x">narcissism</a>. </p>
<p>There is also a link between <a href="https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.83.1.185">happiness and self-esteem</a>, but <a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/1529-1006.01431">more research is needed to determine if self-esteem causes happiness, or vice versa, or if they are just likely to co-occur</a>. However, the level of your self-esteem may be less important than its stability. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A father helping his daughter with homework at the kitchen table" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/542896/original/file-20230815-21-yijw9t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/542896/original/file-20230815-21-yijw9t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/542896/original/file-20230815-21-yijw9t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/542896/original/file-20230815-21-yijw9t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/542896/original/file-20230815-21-yijw9t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/542896/original/file-20230815-21-yijw9t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/542896/original/file-20230815-21-yijw9t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Telling your child ‘Wow, you worked so hard on this!’ instead of ‘Wow, you’re so smart!’ puts the focus on effort.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Shutterstock)</span></span>
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</figure>
<p>Often, people have unstable self-esteem because they make their value dependent on something. This is called <a href="https://doi.org/10.1037/0033-2909.130.3.392">contingent self-worth</a>. <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/20183024">Basing your self-esteem on things like this is volatile</a> because mistakes or failures then become threats to your self-worth rather than opportunities to learn and grow. </p>
<p>People may make their self-worth contingent on things like productivity, religious approval, intelligence, relationships, or body shape or fitness. But what happens if you act immorally, fail a test or gain some weight? Things like relationships and health require lifelong maintenance, which means self-esteem based on success in these areas will constantly be in jeopardy (and therefore unstable). Unsurprisingly, <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/20183024">contingent self-esteem has negative effects on mental health</a>.</p>
<h2>Self-esteem is off the scale, but is it stable?</h2>
<p><a href="https://doi.org/10.1037/pspp0000122">North Americans’ self-esteem is skyrocketing</a>. From 1988 to 2008, self-esteem scores in middle school, high school and college students have increased significantly. Out of a possible 40 on the <a href="https://www.apa.org/obesity-guideline/rosenberg-self-esteem.pdf">Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale</a> (RSE), 11- to 13-year-olds’ scores rose to 32.74 from 28.90, 14- to 17-year-olds’ scores rose to 31.84 from 29.86, and college students’ scores rose to 33.37 from 31.83. </p>
<p>By 2008, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1037/a0019919">the most common RSE score for college students was 40, with nearly one in five college students scoring perfect self-esteem. More than half of college students scored over 35</a>. Most North Americans now have high, but not necessarily stable, self-esteem. </p>
<p>Studies show well-meaning attempts to bolster self-esteem in schools by complimenting intelligence actually impedes academic performance. When students are complimented on intelligence, they tend to <a href="https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.75.1.33">focus on performance rather than learning, have extrinsic motivation for grades rather than intrinsic motivation for knowledge, and consider intelligence a fixed trait rather than something they can improve</a>, all of which is detrimental to learning. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Cropped image of a row of students writing an exam" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/542894/original/file-20230815-19-riwsl7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/542894/original/file-20230815-19-riwsl7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=300&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/542894/original/file-20230815-19-riwsl7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=300&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/542894/original/file-20230815-19-riwsl7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=300&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/542894/original/file-20230815-19-riwsl7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=377&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/542894/original/file-20230815-19-riwsl7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=377&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/542894/original/file-20230815-19-riwsl7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=377&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Focusing on performance increases stress, anxiety and academic problems, not success.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Shutterstock)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Focusing on performance increases stress, anxiety and <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/0146167203029006003">academic problems</a>, not success. <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/20183024">Losing intrinsic motivation</a> makes people feel less in control and more resentful. Finally, having self-esteem contingent on intelligence, while believing intelligence is a fixed trait, morphs mistakes, failures or challenging material into threats to self-worth.</p>
<p><a href="https://doi.org/10.1037/0033-2909.130.3.392">When self-esteem is threatened</a>, those with unstable self-esteem may feel worthless and <a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-6494.1984.tb00349.x">give up to protect themselves from feelings of failure, or they may blindly persist</a> to try to reaffirm their self-worth through success (even if their approach isn’t working, takes longer or takes more work). </p>
<p>Both strategies are unproductive. The more effective approach would be to reassess the problem and approach it from a different angle. </p>
<p>In short, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/1529-1006.01431">self-esteem doesn’t boost good grades, good grades boost self-esteem</a>. Similarly, high self-esteem doesn’t make someone a better leader, better <a href="https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.95.3.608">romantic partner</a>, or more liked. </p>
<p>People with high self-esteem may think they are more popular and well-liked, but those with contingent high self-esteem, are usually perceived as <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/0146167205277206">unsupportive and unlikable</a> (which makes sense if they consider relationships a means to bolster their self-esteem). Just as with grades, social acceptance seems to boost self-esteem, not the opposite. </p>
<p>In other words, self-esteem isn’t a cure-all. Even the most confident, attractive, intelligent people experience relationship breakups, job loss and anxiety. </p>
<p>So, how do we develop healthy, stable self-esteem? By focusing on effort. </p>
<h2>Effort versus results</h2>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Students walking and chatting on campus" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/542852/original/file-20230815-25-j4mqiq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/542852/original/file-20230815-25-j4mqiq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=395&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/542852/original/file-20230815-25-j4mqiq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=395&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/542852/original/file-20230815-25-j4mqiq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=395&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/542852/original/file-20230815-25-j4mqiq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=496&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/542852/original/file-20230815-25-j4mqiq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=496&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/542852/original/file-20230815-25-j4mqiq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=496&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Encouraging kids to work hard, be curious and appreciate the results of their efforts means they’ll have a realistic sense of their abilities.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Shutterstock)</span></span>
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</figure>
<p>It’s impossible for us all to be exceptional and outperform our peers. By assuming those things, we set ourselves up for constant blows to our self-esteem. Instead, we can try to base self-esteem on doing better, not being better. Behaving in ways that align with our goals, and giving ourselves something to be proud of, will develop <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/0146167203029006003">self-esteem that isn’t contingent on results</a> or others’ opinions. </p>
<p>For example, if your self-esteem is currently contingent on relationships, try focusing on how kind or helpful your actions are, rather than how liked you are. If your self-esteem is contingent on productivity, try focusing less on how much you get done and more on the impact of what you get done.</p>
<p>When building self-esteem in others, this means complimenting their efforts, not their results. For example, telling your child “Wow, you worked so hard on this!” or “Wow, you’re learning so much!” instead of “Wow, you’re so smart!” Kids can’t control how smart they are, and they’ll never excel at every subject, so those things shouldn’t define their self-worth. The same goes for adults.</p>
<p>Encouraging kids to work hard, be curious and appreciate the results of their efforts helps them build self-competence and belonging. This gives them a realistic sense of their abilities and an appreciation for their relationship to others.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/211256/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Simon Sherry receives funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada. He also owns CRUX Psychology, a private practice in psychology.</span></em></p>We often think of self-esteem as either high or low, but the level of your self-esteem might be less important than the stability of your self-esteem.Simon Sherry, Clinical Psychologist and Professor in the Department of Psychology and Neuroscience, Dalhousie UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2051822023-05-22T11:34:44Z2023-05-22T11:34:44ZWhat is fatigue? Understanding fatigue among students with disabilities can help schools moderate it<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/527047/original/file-20230518-23-532y9r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=1824%2C521%2C3287%2C2623&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Fatigue has been associated with a variety of psychoeducational issues, such as slower educational progress and more frequent school absences. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Shutterstock)</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>During the COVID-19 pandemic, we heard about people experiencing different kinds of fatigue, whether related <a href="https://theconversation.com/4-steps-to-teacher-recovery-from-compassion-fatigue-and-burnout-during-covid-19-and-beyond-151407">to burnout</a>, <a href="https://apps.who.int/iris/bitstream/handle/10665/335820/WHO-EURO-2020-1160-40906-55390-eng.pdf">being unmotivated to follow pandemic restrictions</a> or <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/S2666-7568(22)00029-0">as a symptom of</a> infection. But what exactly is fatigue? </p>
<p>Fatigue is <a href="https://wwwha.tcd.ie/disability/assets/doc/pdf/Balancing%20the%20Books_Fatigue%20booklet.pdf">not synonymous with tiredness</a>. When one is tired, sleep helps. Fatigue results when cognitive, emotional or physical attentiveness is required for prolonged periods of time resulting in feelings of <a href="https://europepmc.org/article/MED/27355763">tiredness, exhaustion or lack of energy or desire to continue a task</a>. It is not resolved by a nap.</p>
<p>Fatigue regularly includes difficulties in concentration, feelings of anxiety and increased distractibility. Medical professionals and researchers currently define fatigue by differentiating types of exertion: <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5603232/">physical, cognitive</a> and as it has more recently been conceptualized, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/08870440310001627135">social-emotional</a>.</p>
<p>I am working with colleagues to provide a means for students with disabilities and their educational teams to understand the impact of fatigue, <a href="https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.14078/3044">to advocate for appropriate strategies and programs</a> and to moderate fatigue in educational contexts. </p>
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<img alt="Students seen sitting in a classroom listening." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/527039/original/file-20230518-23-ljxaty.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/527039/original/file-20230518-23-ljxaty.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/527039/original/file-20230518-23-ljxaty.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/527039/original/file-20230518-23-ljxaty.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/527039/original/file-20230518-23-ljxaty.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/527039/original/file-20230518-23-ljxaty.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/527039/original/file-20230518-23-ljxaty.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Understanding students’ experiences of fatigue and the impact of it matters to students’ lives.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Allison Shelley/EDUimages)</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/">CC BY-NC</a></span>
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<h2>Fatigue in school-aged children</h2>
<p>Fatigue among school-aged children can have many negative effects. One study based in Japan found about 16 per cent of elementary and 34 per cent of junior high school students <a href="https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/20846803/">reported experiencing fatigue throughout a typical school week</a>. In this study, self-reported fatigue was associated with difficulties with motor processes and executive functions, inevitably leading to poorer academic performance. </p>
<p>The same researchers also found that decreasing cognitive functioning was also related to a <a href="https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/21235802/">decrease in intrinsic motivation</a> and consequently, poor academic performance. </p>
<p>In addition, fatigue has been associated with a variety of psychoeducational issues, such as <a href="https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/16818483/">reduced physical activity</a>, <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4096811/">slower educational progress</a>, <a href="https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/24146285/">more frequent school absences</a>, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1469-7610.2004.00244.x">less socializing with friends and family</a> and <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5831094/">increased stress in children</a>.</p>
<h2>Students with disabilities</h2>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="A girl is seen touching a hearing aid behind her ear." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/526276/original/file-20230515-26296-odirz2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/526276/original/file-20230515-26296-odirz2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=625&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/526276/original/file-20230515-26296-odirz2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=625&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/526276/original/file-20230515-26296-odirz2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=625&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/526276/original/file-20230515-26296-odirz2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=785&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/526276/original/file-20230515-26296-odirz2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=785&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/526276/original/file-20230515-26296-odirz2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=785&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The cumulative effects of fatigue related to constant effort for listening and communicating can lead to poorer quality of life outcomes.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Shutterstock)</span></span>
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<p>In educational settings, <a href="https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/11000775/">fatigue is frequently</a> experienced by <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/0040059915626135">people with disabilities</a>.</p>
<p>Research has documented how <a href="https://doi.org/10.1044/hhdc24.2.25">young students who are deaf or hard of hearing experience fatigue daily</a> related to the need for constant and ongoing physical, social-emotional or mental effort for: </p>
<ul>
<li><p>Listening and watching both their teacher and classroom support personnel such as a sign language interpreter or educational assistant;</p></li>
<li><p>Communicating with peers through a communication device or lip/speech reading;</p></li>
<li><p>Attending to classroom instruction through an amplification device. </p></li>
</ul>
<p>The cumulative effects of such experiences lead to <a href="https://www.igi-global.com/chapter/examining-fatigue-for-students-who-are-deaf-or-hard-of-hearing-through-universal-design-for-learning/294152">poorer quality of life outcomes</a> for these students, including limiting educational and vocational choices, increased mental health concerns and negative impacts on family and friend relationships. </p>
<h2>Poorly understood impact</h2>
<p>Currently, the impact of fatigue in educational settings for students with disabilities is poorly understood by teachers, administrators, policymakers and parents or caregivers and students themselves. </p>
<p>Educators frequently <a href="https://academic.oup.com/jdsde/article/17/4/518/393395">fail to understand the importance of providing educational supports to mitigate fatigue</a>, or mislabel symptoms of fatigue with terms like laziness, stubbornness or a behavioural problem.</p>
<p>Students often <a href="https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.14078/3044">fail to recognize fatigue symptoms</a>, lack understanding of how their learning is compromised by fatigue and have limited coping strategies. As a result, they frequently cannot or do not openly name or express their fatigue. </p>
<p>There have been some efforts made within educational systems to address acknowledging and responding to fatigue to support student engagement and wellness (such as options for flexible scheduling or periodic breaks). Yet, our research team found when we interviewed junior high and high school students who are deaf or hard of hearing that <a href="https://doi.org/10.18848/2327-0128/CGP/v23i03/23-31">none of the students we interviewed</a> were consistently afforded such accommodations. </p>
<p>Instead, students were left to cope with increased levels of fatigue on their own.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A student seen sitting at a desk holding their head while people are talking behind them." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/526277/original/file-20230515-30399-e5v3f4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/526277/original/file-20230515-30399-e5v3f4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=383&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/526277/original/file-20230515-30399-e5v3f4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=383&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/526277/original/file-20230515-30399-e5v3f4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=383&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/526277/original/file-20230515-30399-e5v3f4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=481&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/526277/original/file-20230515-30399-e5v3f4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=481&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/526277/original/file-20230515-30399-e5v3f4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=481&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A study found that no junior high and high school students who were deaf or hard of hearing were afforded accommodations to mitigate their fatigue.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Shutterstock)</span></span>
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</figure>
<h2>Next research steps</h2>
<p>As a next step towards better understanding the impact of fatigue for students with disabilities, my colleagues and I designed the Fatigue in Educational Contexts (FEC) survey. </p>
<p>The purpose of the survey is to accurately identify, describe and interpret the presence and intensity of fatigue and to inform how students’ fatigue can be alleviated in educational contexts. Our current focus is on students who are deaf or hard of hearing, but we plan to expand our focus to all students once the survey is refined.</p>
<p>Most available fatigue surveys examine workplace or injury related fatigue in adult populations. A commonly used standardized survey designed for children and adolescents, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1002/cncr.10428">the PedsQL-MFS</a>, has significant limitations for our purposes: </p>
<ul>
<li>It was not developed for individuals with disabilities nor is it inclusive of the heterogeneity of the disabled student population; </li>
<li>None of the items on the survey specifically address fatigue in classrooms.</li>
</ul>
<h2>Including wider student, family responses</h2>
<p>The child version of the recently published <a href="https://www.vumc.org/vfs/pediatric-scales-and-user-guide">Vanderbilt Fatigue Scale</a> includes some survey questions addressing fatigue in classroom environments. However, it focuses exclusively on fatigue as a result of auditory effort (for deaf or hard of hearing individuals using amplification devices and spoken language) and is accessible only in written text format. </p>
<p>Currently, there is no survey suitable for a diversity of students with disabilities, including among deaf students who are sign language users and/or who are dual language users, meaning they both sign and use spoken language, but not simultaneously.</p>
<p>The FEC survey will be innovative because it will be designed to capture experiences of these students, and it will include the perspectives of students, their families and educational teams about how they understand and see student fatigue.</p>
<p>This research can help educators and policymakers propose relevant changes in education, such as policy or curricular changes, educator training or resource allocation or protocols for relating with students, families or communities to better respond to and mitigate students’ fatigue.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/205182/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Natalia Rohatyn-Martin does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Capturing the experiences of students who are deaf or hard of hearing is important so schools can address fatigue related to listening and communicating efforts.Natalia Rohatyn-Martin, Assistant Professor, Department of Human Services and Early Learning, MacEwan UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1884352022-08-11T04:00:12Z2022-08-11T04:00:12ZAnother school has banned mobile phones but research shows bans don’t stop bullying or improve student grades<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/478483/original/file-20220810-16-tzkp3o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=20%2C20%2C4425%2C3071&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/group-students-using-mobile-phone-on-654268147">Shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>This week, one Sydney high school <a href="https://www.smh.com.au/national/nsw/a-sydney-high-school-banned-mobile-phones-it-had-dramatic-results-20220803-p5b6zf.html">made headlines</a> for banning mobile phones during school hours. Phones can come to school but must stay in locked pouches allowing teachers to “focus on educating students”.</p>
<p>This follows other recent phone bans at both public and <a href="https://www.smh.com.au/education/sceggs-bans-students-using-mobiles-as-schools-battle-online-dependence-20220429-p5ahad.html">private schools</a> around Australia. In 2020, Victoria <a href="https://www.premier.vic.gov.au/mobile-phones-be-banned-next-year-all-state-schools">banned phones</a> for all state primary and secondary schools and many private schools, while prestigious Sydney girls school SCEGGS Darlinghurst <a href="https://www.smh.com.au/education/sceggs-bans-students-using-mobiles-as-schools-battle-online-dependence-20220429-p5ahad.html">banned phones</a> in May 2022. </p>
<p>This is part of a <a href="https://bera-journals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/bjet.12943">worldwide trend</a>. In a move popular with parents, schools and governments see phone bans as a way to fix <a href="https://www.lismorecitynews.com.au/story/7731645/tiktok-harassment-intimidation-behind-school-phone-ban-decision/">bullying</a> and student disengagement.</p>
<p>But <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0272775719303966?via%3Dihub">research shows</a> banning doesn’t resolve these problems. Instead, we need to educate students about how to manage these problems.</p>
<h2>Schools in the firing line</h2>
<p>Schools have certainly been thrown into the firing line when it comes to helping young people grapple with technology. Anecdotally, phone bans are <a href="https://www.lismorecitynews.com.au/story/7731645/tiktok-harassment-intimidation-behind-school-phone-ban-decision/">supposed to ensure</a> students behave better and pay more attention in class. </p>
<p>However, genuinely resolving issues like these in the long term is not simple. Removing one variable – a phone – cannot address the complexity needed to resolve them. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/banning-mobile-phones-in-schools-beneficial-or-risky-heres-what-the-evidence-says-119456">Banning mobile phones in schools: beneficial or risky? Here's what the evidence says</a>
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<p>The purpose of school is to support children to develop the skills, knowledge and dispositions needed for the era in which they live. </p>
<p>Given we live in a digital era, the question we should be asking is not, “should we ban phones or not”. It should be how can schools support young people to engage with technology in an empowered and positive way? And where does banning mobile phones fit into this? </p>
<h2>The research says bans don’t work</h2>
<p>From talking to teachers for my work, I know that phones in classrooms can be frustrating. If phones are not silenced or turned over, students can be momentarily distracted if a notification comes up. </p>
<p>But rigorous peer-reviewed research shows banning mobile phones in class have no impact on students’ academic performance. It does not harm or improve academic results in the long-term. A <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0272775719303966?via%3Dihub">2020 Swedish study</a> examined high school students grade points (or marks) before and after a year-long mobile phone ban and found no impact. </p>
<p>Despite concerns, research shows mobile phones have <a href="https://www.diva-portal.org/smash/record.jsf?dswid=8058&faces-redirect=true&language=sv&searchType=SIMPLE&query=&af=%5B%5D&aq=%5B%5B%5D%5D&aq2=%5B%5B%5D%5D&aqe=%5B%5D&pid=diva2%3A866544&noOfRows=50&sortOrder=author_sort_asc&sortOrder2=title_sort_asc&onlyFullText=false&sf=all">generally been found</a> not to disrupt teachers instructing students. This is because students mostly pick them up between tasks or at the end of lessons.</p>
<p>Research also <a href="https://dx.doi.org/10.1787/92a11084-en">tells us</a> traditional (in-person) bullying continues to be more prevalent than cyberbullying around the world. So, removing one device for six hours a day will not stop bullying. </p>
<p>When thinking about phones in schools, there are three bigger issues we need to think about, beyond simply banning them at the school gate.</p>
<h2>1. Living in a distracting world</h2>
<p>A 2018 <a href="https://research.udemy.com/research_report/udemy-depth-2018-workplace-distraction-report/">Udemy survey</a> found 36% of millennials and Gen Z employees spend more than two hours checking their smartphones for personal activities during the workday. In real terms, the 40 hour week has turned into a 30 hour work week, plus ten hours on your phone. </p>
<p>So, we know students need to learn how to work and be productive when they are in a technology-immersed world.</p>
<p>This is not to say classrooms should become a free-for-all TikTok fest whenever students feel the urge to go online. But we need to support children to learn how to concentrate and function in a digitally-saturated world.</p>
<h2>2. New risks and changes to old ones</h2>
<p>The digital era has introduced some risks and changed the nature of others and we need to specifically educate students about these. </p>
<p>Privacy risks have also morphed and follow us almost everywhere we go. Recent <a href="https://internetsafetylabs.org/resources/reports/spotlight-report-1-school-mobile-apps-student-data-sharing-behavior/">research</a> by Internet Study Lab suggests 95% of educational apps used in schools collect personal data about students that is then on sold to third parties. </p>
<p>Students also need to be able to identify misinformation, manage <a href="https://theconversation.com/there-is-in-fact-a-wrong-way-to-use-google-here-are-5-tips-to-set-you-on-the-right-path-179099">algorithmic bias</a>, understand commercial profiling and watch out for social isolation. And bullying of course now <a href="https://www.oecd-ilibrary.org/content/paper/f60b492b-en">occurs online</a> and follows children beyond the school gate. </p>
<p>Locking phones in pouches may be a short-term solution, but young people will still face these complex, technology-related issues, perhaps as soon as on the way home from school. </p>
<h2>3. Treating children with respect</h2>
<p>Over COVID lockdowns there was enormous reliance on children to use their devices to learn, socialise and stay mentally well. Now we are (mostly) back to normal and suddenly, young people are no longer to be trusted with a screen in the context of their schooling. </p>
<p>Not only is this confusing for young people, it sets up a dynamic where something they need to use everyday is seen now seen as “wrong” or “harmful”. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/kids-need-to-learn-about-cybersecurity-but-teachers-only-have-so-much-time-in-the-day-112136">Kids need to learn about cybersecurity, but teachers only have so much time in the day</a>
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</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>We need to build trust with young people and empower them with skills and positive habits to use technology well in ways that will enhance their life.</p>
<p>Obviously this adds more pressure and work to already stretched schools, but if phones are going to be banned, they can’t just be ignored in the classroom. There needs to be specific lessons or instruction on the issues around them. </p>
<p>This is no longer a “<a href="https://theconversation.com/screen-time-for-kids-is-an-outdated-concept-so-lets-ditch-it-and-focus-on-quality-instead-186462">screentime</a>” conversation. We need new knowledge and new education strategies if children are to thrive online post-COVID and beyond.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/188435/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Joanne Orlando currently receives funding from Queensland Department of Education.</span></em></p>Classrooms should not be a free-for-all TikTok fest. But we need to support children to learn how to concentrate and function in a digitally-saturated world.Joanne Orlando, Researcher: Digital Literacy and Digital Wellbeing, Western Sydney UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1830782022-05-19T12:22:50Z2022-05-19T12:22:50ZPandemic babies with developmental delays can be helped to make up for lost social interaction – 5 tips for parents<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/464050/original/file-20220518-17-kfq2t0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=22%2C0%2C5059%2C3403&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Children born during the pandemic are at nearly twice the risk for developmental delays.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/teacher-and-students-learning-alphabet-with-digital-royalty-free-image/699084027?adppopup=true">Ariel Skelley / Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Typically, about <a href="https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31558576/">1 in 6 children</a> experience a developmental delay. But children born during the pandemic, a 2022 study has found, have <a href="https://doi.org/10.31234/osf.io/j7kcn">nearly twice the risk</a> of developmental delays in communication and social development compared to babies born prior to the pandemic.</p>
<p>The reason, some researchers believe, is related to <a href="https://www.cuimc.columbia.edu/news/babies-born-during-pandemics-first-year-score-slightly-lower-developmental-screening-test">less interaction with other children</a>, among other factors.</p>
<p>Delays in communication can mean a child learns to talk later, talks less or uses gestures like pointing instead of talking. Social developmental delays might be present when a child doesn’t respond to their name when called, doesn’t look at what adults are paying attention to in the environment, or doesn’t play with other children or with trusted adults.</p>
<p>It’s hard to say if children who suffer from these delays can be caught up or if they will require continued services or special education into elementary school and beyond. The more severe the delay, the more likely the child will need ongoing specialized services.</p>
<p>One way to be more certain is to talk to your child’s pediatrician about whether your child is meeting certain developmental benchmarks. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, part of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, also recommends that parents contact their state’s <a href="https://www.cdc.gov/ncbddd/actearly/parents/states.html#textlinks">early intervention program</a> and say, “I have concerns about my child’s development, and I would like to have my child evaluated to find out if he/she is eligible for early intervention services.” </p>
<p>In the meantime, parents and early childhood teachers can support language development for children who may suffer from delays by providing rich, responsive interactions and conversations.</p>
<p>As a <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=XMQY7N0AAAAJ&hl=en">researcher</a> who specializes in language and literacy skills for young children with learning disabilities, here I offer five evidence-based strategies that parents and teachers of children with pandemic-related developmental delays can use to support the growth of their child’s language skills and later school performance.</p>
<h2>1. Get children talking</h2>
<p>Language is how we share experiences. However, children with developmental delays may not talk very much. Adults can <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecresq.2019.02.010">create opportunities to talk</a>, which helps children develop the ability to communicate and interact with others.</p>
<p>One way to do this is to create situations in which the child has to talk to get something they want. For example, at home, put a favorite toy or snack in a clear sealed bag or plastic container so the child can see the item but cannot get it themselves without asking for help. At preschool or day care during snack time or free play, provide the student with two choices and have them say which choice they want. For children whose speech is hard to understand, any noise or attempt at talking is a good sign. The important part is that they are trying to talk, not that the words come out perfectly. If the child’s speech is unintelligible, have them point and talk at the same time to show their choice. </p>
<h2>2. Expand on children’s speech</h2>
<p>Providing <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecresq.2016.01.015">rich language</a> is critical for supporting the language development of children with developmental delays.</p>
<p>One way to provide rich language is by responding to what the child says and then adding on details or adjectives. For example, if a young child sees a dog and exclaims, “Doggy!”, an adult could expand on that speech by saying, “Yes! There’s a big brown dog.” The adult is acknowledging what the child said and providing more language for the child to hear and respond to while sharing the experience of seeing a dog.</p>
<h2>3. Be a warm and attentive conversation partner</h2>
<p>When adults provide warm, supportive interactions, children go on to have <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0885200616300151?via%3Dihub">better language skills in preschool</a>, better vocabulary and reading ability in first grade, and better mathematics performance in third grade.</p>
<p>Being a supportive partner means <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177%2F0271121411426486">following the child’s lead and not always telling the child what to do</a>. For example, play with toys the child chose or enact pretend scenarios the child came up with. During conversation, talk directly to the child about a topic the child chose and take turns talking. Don’t worry about correcting the child or guiding the interaction. It’s OK if you’ve talked about the dog across the street a thousand times. Each interaction builds language skills. Stay positive and engaged.</p>
<h2>4. Share a book</h2>
<p>Shared book reading is a technique where the adult actively involves the child in the storytelling experience. Children who participate in frequent shared book reading have larger vocabularies, use more complex language and have <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecresq.2018.12.006">better reading comprehension in later grades</a>.</p>
<p>Start by asking open-ended questions like, “What do you think will happen next?” Talk to the child about their real-life experiences similar to the book, like, “Remember when we went to the park? What did we do there?”</p>
<p>Point out words and letters while reading aloud to help children develop their awareness of print. Talk about interesting words in the story and define new words. Children often like to read the same book over and over, so there will be many opportunities to use these strategies during story time. Don’t worry about using them all at once.</p>
<h2>5. Talk about words</h2>
<p>Help children develop a better awareness of the connection between words and how they sound. This is an important skill that <a href="https://lincs.ed.gov/publications/pdf/NELPReport09.pdf">supports reading and writing</a>.</p>
<p>Clap or count syllables in words, such as “cupcake” or “butterfly.” Tell nursery rhymes and have the child say which words rhyme or come up with other words that rhyme. Talk about the sounds you hear at the beginning or end of words, such as the “t” sound in “tiger” or the “m” in “room.” Children are slowly learning that spoken language is made up of words and sounds that can be represented by written letters. This knowledge is the gateway for learning to read and write.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/183078/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Abigail A. Allen received a federal grant from the Institute of Education Sciences (R324B200016) to develop a series of sentence writing intervention lessons for young struggling learners (2020-2024).</span></em></p>The COVID-19 pandemic – and the isolation it brought on – deprived many babies of the stimulating experiences they need to develop. Is the damage permanent? A language specialist weighs in.Abigail A. Allen, Associate Professor of Special Education, Clemson UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1775152022-03-31T12:43:19Z2022-03-31T12:43:19ZA new way to pick the best school for your child<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/455283/original/file-20220330-23-1avdaan.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=9%2C0%2C2108%2C1409&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Different types of data can influence how parents select schools for their children.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/young-students-wearing-medical-face-masks-and-royalty-free-image/1266512211">Viktorcvetkovic/E+ via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>When parents look for information to help them choose a good elementary or secondary school for their child, they often turn to a variety of sources online.</p>
<p>For instance, they may check out state government websites that provide “<a href="https://www2.ed.gov/policy/elsec/leg/essa/parent-guide-state-local-report-cards.pdf">report cards</a>” on local schools. Examples include Virginia’s <a href="https://schoolquality.virginia.gov/">School Quality Profiles</a> or Ohio’s <a href="https://reportcard.education.ohio.gov/">School Report Cards</a>.</p>
<p>Parents might also rely on popular school rating websites like <a href="https://www.greatschools.org/">GreatSchools.org</a>, <a href="https://www.niche.com/">Niche.com</a> or U.S. News & World Report’s <a href="https://www.usnews.com/education/k12">K-12 schools directory</a>, which claims to help parents find the “best” schools for their child. </p>
<p>As a researcher who specializes in <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=NzfortIAAAAJ&hl=en&oi=ao">education policy</a>, I see some shortcomings with how many of these websites portray school quality to the public. I’m interested in the kinds of information that parents use to make school-related decisions. I also study how parental decisions about which school to select for their child might influence student diversity within schools.</p>
<p>Along with fellow <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=4V0B4vgAAAAJ&hl=en&oi=ao">education researcher Jeffrey Henig</a>, I conducted a survey with a nationally representative sample of 2,800 parents or caretakers of children under age 12. With financial support from the <a href="https://www.spencer.org/">Spencer Foundation</a> and technical assistance from <a href="http://www.yougov.com/">YouGov</a>, <a href="https://doi.org/10.26300/7n5s-km15">we embedded an experiment</a> in the survey to see how enrollment decisions might vary if parents chose schools based on different kinds of academic performance data.</p>
<p>More specifically, we enabled parents to look at a school’s academic performance in <a href="https://doi.org/10.3102/01623737211030505">two different ways</a>: achievement status and achievement growth. Achievement status is based on students’ current levels of academic performance, whereas achievement growth considers students’ academic performance over time. </p>
<p><a href="https://doi.org/10.26300/7n5s-km15">We found</a> that when parents are given information about achievement growth, they tend to choose schools that are not only more effective at teaching their students but also more demographically diverse.</p>
<h2>Status vs. growth</h2>
<p>To make more informed choices for their children, parents need a better understanding of the strengths and weaknesses of these two ways to measure schools’ academic performance. But many websites meant to help parents choose schools – whether government or commercial sites – offer information about only achievement status.</p>
<p>Achievement status refers to individual students’ academic performance at a single point in time. For example, 50% of a hypothetical school’s fifth graders might be proficient in reading as measured by the state’s annual reading test. Measures of achievement status like this provide a rough understanding of how students are doing in the tested subjects. </p>
<p>However, achievement status does not tell the public much about how schools contribute to student learning. Students face different obstacles both inside and outside of school, such as the <a href="https://www.insightintodiversity.com/povertys-long-lasting-effects-on-students-education-and-success/">challenges of poverty</a> and <a href="https://doi.org/10.3102/0091732X16686949">racial discrimination</a>, and they enter school with different levels of preparation. As a result, schools with relatively high achievement status tend to be <a href="https://doi.org/10.7758/rsf.2019.5.2.03">disproportionately white and wealthy</a>.</p>
<p>Achievement growth, on the other hand, refers to the rate of change in individual students’ academic performance from one year to the next. Consider the same hypothetical school where 50% of the fifth graders are proficient in reading. But the year before, when those same students were fourth graders, only 40% were proficient in reading. Something very positive is happening in this school, but people would miss it if they focused exclusively on the 50% proficiency rate. Rather than looking at the results from a single year, achievement growth measures changes like this over time.</p>
<p>Some researchers argue that growth is a better measure of school effectiveness than status. For instance, education researcher <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=SWYJJ_YAAAAJ&hl=en&oi=ao">Morgan Polikoff</a> <a href="https://www.future-ed.org/work/proficiency-vs-growth-toward-a-better-measure/">has noted</a> how indicators of achievement status, like proficiency rates, “essentially measure who is enrolled in a school, rather than how well the school is doing at educating them.”</p>
<p>“Because such status measures merely capture the current performance levels of students, proficiency rates are highly correlated with student socioeconomic status and other demographics,” Polikoff has written. “Growth-based measures, on the other hand, can show students’ year-to-year changes and better demonstrate the school’s effectiveness or contribution to student learning.”</p>
<p>In other words, a school’s academic <a href="https://www.nwea.org/content/uploads/2020/03/NWEA_Hegedus_evaluating-the-relationships-between-poverty-and-school-performance_whitepaper.pdf">growth has much</a> <a href="https://doi.org/10.7758/rsf.2019.5.2.03">less</a> to do with who’s enrolled at the school and more to do with what the school is doing to educate those students.</p>
<p>Some people might wonder whether a school’s rate of achievement growth merely reflects the fact that, for many schools serving disadvantaged students, those students may just have more room to grow. <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2017/12/05/upshot/a-better-way-to-compare-public-schools.html">In fact</a>, there are roughly as many high-growth schools that serve disproportionately affluent students as there are high-growth schools that serve disproportionately low-income students. As it turns out, all students – no matter their backgrounds – have a similar capacity to learn and grow.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/455069/original/file-20220329-13-1284guv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A classroom filled with many children of color." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/455069/original/file-20220329-13-1284guv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/455069/original/file-20220329-13-1284guv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=402&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/455069/original/file-20220329-13-1284guv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=402&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/455069/original/file-20220329-13-1284guv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=402&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/455069/original/file-20220329-13-1284guv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=506&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/455069/original/file-20220329-13-1284guv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=506&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/455069/original/file-20220329-13-1284guv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=506&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Parents are more likely to choose schools with racial diversity if they’re given data about a school’s academic growth.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/teacher-going-over-exam-instructions-royalty-free-image/523444522?adppopup=true">Will & Deni McIntyre/Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Toward more diverse schools</h2>
<p>For my study, I asked participants to choose between three randomly selected schools drawn from the same randomly selected school district somewhere in the United States. To guide this choice, participants received a range of demographic information about each school, such as the percentages of white, Black, and Hispanic students and the percentage of students eligible for free and reduced-price lunch – a common measure of economic disadvantage. In addition, some participants were <a href="https://edopportunity.org/">randomly assigned to receive information</a> about each school’s average status, average growth, or both.</p>
<p>What I found is that when parents are provided with information about a school’s current academic performance, they tend to choose higher-status schools, which, on average, have more students who are white and from families with higher income. However, when parents are provided with student growth data, they tend to choose higher-growth schools, many of which serve larger proportions of low-income students and students of color.</p>
<p>For this reason, school rating websites that provide only achievement status information are essentially nudging families toward the whitest and most affluent schools in a community. This exacerbates school segregation, especially if white and affluent families are more likely to have the economic means to decide where they want to live and where to send their kids to school. </p>
<p>[<em>More than 150,000 readers get one of The Conversation’s informative newsletters.</em> <a href="https://memberservices.theconversation.com/newsletters/?source=inline-150K">Join the list today</a>.]</p>
<p>Increasingly, school districts and states have included growth data in their reports on local schools. As of 2020, <a href="https://dataqualitycampaign.org/resources/flagship-resources/showmethedata-2020/">43 states</a> and the <a href="https://dcschoolreportcard.org/">District of Columbia</a> reported achievement growth info in their annual school report cards.</p>
<p>However, with the exception of <a href="https://www.greatschools.org/gk/articles/why-student-growth-matters/">GreatSchools.org</a>, most school rating websites have yet to incorporate student achievement growth data into the range of information that they provide.</p>
<p>Measuring growth has also been made more difficult by the COVID-19 pandemic. Notably, annual standardized tests were canceled in <a href="https://www.chalkbeat.org/2020/3/20/21196085/all-states-can-cancel-standardized-tests-this-year-trump-and-devos-say">2020</a> and frequently administered in modified formats in <a href="https://www.chalkbeat.org/2021/2/22/22296173/biden-administration-state-tests">2021</a>. It will be more challenging – but not <a href="https://ies.ed.gov/ncee/rel/Products/Blog/100665">impossible</a> – for states to calculate growth accurately for the next few years because of the missing and modified tests during the pandemic.</p>
<h2>The future of growth data</h2>
<p>Calculating students’ rates of growth on tests is a technical and <a href="https://scholar.harvard.edu/files/andrewho/files/a_pracitioners_guide_to_growth_models.pdf">complicated process</a>. The results are often difficult for many people to understand. The next step in my research is to identify more effective and intuitive ways of communicating growth data to the public.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/177515/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>David M. Houston receives funding from the Spencer Foundation. </span></em></p>An education researcher explains how most school rating websites lack a key piece of information about school performance.David M. Houston, Assistant Professor of Education, George Mason UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1678972021-10-07T19:06:19Z2021-10-07T19:06:19ZRead the student survey responses shared by academics and you’ll see why Professor Hambling is justified in burning hers<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/424617/original/file-20211005-15-1l9r1ul.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C8%2C5897%2C3916&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Eliza Morse/Netflix</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>If you’ve watched the Netflix sitcom <a href="https://www.netflix.com/au/title/81206259">The Chair</a> you’ll remember the scene in which Professor Joan Hambling burns her student evaluations, after admitting she hadn’t read any of them since the 1980s. Many of us in academia whooped in delight when Professor Hambling lit that match. </p>
<p>We know exactly how she feels. For LGBTIQ+ people in particular, student experience or satisfaction surveys can be a source of distress as they provide students with an anonymous means to discriminate against and harass queer academics. At times, these surveys are little better than university-facilitated hate speech. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/our-uni-teachers-were-already-among-the-worlds-most-stressed-covid-and-student-feedback-have-just-made-things-worse-162612">Our uni teachers were already among the world's most stressed. COVID and student feedback have just made things worse</a>
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</p>
<hr>
<h2>An unreliable guide to teaching quality</h2>
<p>Adding salt to the wound is that universities then use these surveys to assess academics’ teaching performance, despite growing evidence they are not fit for this purpose. The University of New South Wales has even proposed to <a href="https://www.smh.com.au/national/what-goes-wrong-when-uni-students-mark-their-teachers-20210831-p58nk0.html">publish these survey results</a>.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/2331186X.2017.1304016">Research</a> <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/2331186X.2017.1304016">shows</a> student evaluations of teaching are not accurate measures of teaching effectiveness. Other <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/0260293022000009294">research</a> shows these surveys do not lead to higher teaching quality or better learning outcomes and are not trusted by students as a means of giving them a voice. In contrast, such surveys are linked to <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/01973533.2020.1756817">poorer teaching, grade inflation</a> and to <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/349864729_Sexism_racism_prejudice_and_bias_a_literature_review_and_synthesis_of_research_surrounding_student_evaluations_of_courses_and_teaching">racism, sexism and homophobia</a>. </p>
<p>A <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/01973533.2020.1756817">number</a> of <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/13562510601102131">studies</a> have shown grade satisfaction is a major factor in survey results – the higher the student’s grades the better the feedback they give. Students at prestigious universities are also <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/283298711_Designing_a_predictive_model_of_student_satisfaction_in_online_learning">more likely to positively rate their lecturers</a> because the university and its courses are seen as “world class”. Most damningly, student evaluations are often <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/349864729_Sexism_racism_prejudice_and_bias_a_literature_review_and_synthesis_of_research_surrounding_student_evaluations_of_courses_and_teaching">little more than veiled bias</a> about their lecturer’s personal traits, especially gender, race and sexuality.</p>
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<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/qF1JPTdS5pA?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Despite what she tells the chair of the department, Professor Joan Hambling has resisted reading her student evaluations.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Sharing the best and worst feedback</h2>
<p>I recently asked a dozen academics from universities across Australia to share their worst and best student feedback stories. A common thread in these stories was students using the surveys to voice homophobic and transphobic sentiment. These are real student responses to questions about teaching quality:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>I couldn’t concentrate because I couldn’t tell if the teacher was a man or woman.</p>
<p>I found it extremely frustrating that a lot of examples and theories all revolved around sexuality/gender/identification and how it affects him. Speaking to a number of students in this topic, a lot of us felt like it was over the top.</p>
<p>This lecturer has no empathy for students not supporting the LGBTQ ideology.</p>
<p>She looks like a man professor not a woman one.</p>
<p>He made me uncomfortable because gays and lesbianism are against my religion.</p>
<p>There are only two genders, men and women!</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Some other comments were so offensive they were unpublishable. </p>
<p>There was also a strong thread of sexism. <a href="https://www.ofce.sciences-po.fr/pdf/dtravail/WP2015-13.pdf">Research</a> shows women receive lower ratings than male academics for doing the same thing. Women academics were judged harshly for being feminist or not conforming to stereotypical gender norms. One academic copped abuse for both in a single comment:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Question: Do you have any other comments to add about this teacher in this unit? Answer: You look like 13 year old boy but the brain of a woman power bullshit and your (sic) a germ.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The academic in question had a short, Pixie-style haircut at the time. Here we have the student’s perception of her gender non-conformity negatively impacting the academic’s teaching quality score.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1095775692996763649"}"></div></p>
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<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/male-teachers-are-most-likely-to-rate-highly-in-university-student-feedback-111741">Male teachers are most likely to rate highly in university student feedback</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>These surveys provide two forms of so-called data, a numeric score and qualitative data in the form of student comments. To assess teaching performance, or to decide if an academic will be appointed or promoted, the numeric score alone is normally used. This means an academic given a poor score accompanied by a discriminatory comment is being evaluated without proper context. </p>
<p>That being said, neither the numeric score nor the comments necessarily reveal the student’s true motivation for the feedback. Students are discouraged from openly venting their racism, homophobia and sexism but this does not mean their attitudes change. They are just cleverer about how they express it. Anonymous surveys enable them to rate an academic harshly without having to justify the rating or say why.</p>
<h2>Many responses have nothing to do with teaching</h2>
<p><a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/02602938.2019.1640863">Research</a> also shows students are often not even answering the question they are asked, as the comments above show. They often base their scores and comments – both positive and negative – on things outside the classroom and beyond the academic’s control. Here are some examples:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>It would’ve been nice not to have to miss so many classes due to public holidays due to the classes being on a Monday.</p>
<p>Library access sometimes confusing - not everything available online.</p>
<p>IT help at this university is terrible, nothing ever works how it should and they never fix it.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>One academic I contacted received a positive score and comment because of her wardrobe:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Question: What was good about the course?
Student comment: I like your shirts 😊</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Another academic received a low teaching quality score because the classroom did not have a nice view and the student found that depressing. </p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1381510610790285312"}"></div></p>
<p>Although academics generally value and respect their students, it would be foolish to pretend that as a group they will give objective feedback with the sole aim of improving teaching. About <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/03075079.2021.1972093">one in ten students</a> routinely cheats on their assessments. <a href="https://www.emerald.com/insight/content/doi/10.1108/HE-05-2019-0023/full/html">Half of British university students</a> experience assault and harassment on campus from other students. Another <a href="https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10734-008-9172-y">UK study</a> showed close to a quarter of LGBTIQ students had been a victim of homophobic harassment or discrimination, including threats of physical violence, at university.</p>
<p>Most students are good people, but enough harbour sexist, racist and homophobic views to distort survey outcomes.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/sexual-abuse-harassment-and-discrimination-rife-among-australian-academics-97856">Sexual abuse, harassment and discrimination 'rife' among Australian academics</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>What are the impacts on academics?</h2>
<p>Having positions of relative authority in the university system does not make LGBTIQ academics immune to <a href="https://theconversation.com/sexual-abuse-harassment-and-discrimination-rife-among-australian-academics-97856">homophobia on campus</a>. If anything, they may feel like they have targets on their backs that force some back into the closet. Giving students an anonymous means to vent their bias and purposely harm academics’ careers and well-being just makes things worse.</p>
<p>Foregrounding student evaluations of teaching over other ways of assessing teaching performance — such as peer review and actual student learning outcomes — also leads some academics from vulnerable communities to self-censor in classes. Some queer academics, especially those on precarious casual contracts, try to be “less queer”. One non-binary academic adopted a “cisgender-friendly way of dressing” for the classroom after student comments. Having to wear more normative clothing made the academic feel they were “in a form of prison, wearing an inmate’s uniform”. </p>
<p>Obviously, having to hide who we are is not conducive to a productive teaching environment nor to our well-being.</p>
<p>Furthermore, for surveys to be statistically relevant and represent the majority attitudes of any given class the response rates need to be at 60% or higher – a benchmark routinely expected of survey data. Often students participate in these surveys at much lower rates. These low rates give a louder voice to those who wish to use the surveys to punish academics for their non-conformity to hetero-patriarchal values.</p>
<p>We already have better ways of assessing teaching quality and student learning, and ensuring those processes are authentic and fair. They’re called assessment outcomes. </p>
<p>In contrast, student evaluations of teaching are not fit for purpose and commonly discriminate against LGBTIQ+ and women academics. Perhaps Professor Hambling had valid reasons for burning her student feedback evaluations.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/167897/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Pema Düddul does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Student experience or satisfaction surveys are not a reliable guide to teaching performance. Even worse, anonymous survey responses are at times little better than university-facilitated hate speech.Pema Düddul, Associate Professor in Writing and Publishing, University of Southern QueenslandLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1616732021-06-15T05:48:40Z2021-06-15T05:48:40ZGreen space around primary schools may improve students’ academic performance<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/404389/original/file-20210603-13-wbcepa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/children-rucksacks-standing-park-near-school-664225237">Shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Greenery around primary schools may improve students’ academic performance, while traffic pollution may be detrimental, <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0013935121006198?dgcid=author">our study</a> shows.</p>
<p>With increasing urbanisation in Australia and globally, consideration needs to be given to the location of schools. Children need to grow and learn in environments that promote their physical health, as well as their cognitive development and academic learning.</p>
<p>Our research mapped greenery and traffic exposure around 851 primary schools across greater Melbourne.</p>
<p>We examined how greenery and traffic-related air pollution were associated with the average 2018 NAPLAN scores in years 3 and 5. The scores were in five domains: reading, writing, spelling, grammar, punctuation and numeracy. </p>
<p>People tend to see green leafy suburbs as more wealthy, and socioeconomic status is a significant predictor of academic scores. So to ensure we were looking at the effects of the greenery itself, we compared schools in the same socioeconomic bracket. We found more greenery was associated with better NAPLAN scores. Meanwhile, higher exposure to traffic-related pollution was associated with poorer scores.</p>
<h2>The importance of urban greenery</h2>
<p>A growing body of evidence shows access to green space — which includes parks, trees, shrubs and grass — <a href="https://www.pnas.org/content/112/26/7937">is linked to</a> children’s healthy development. </p>
<p>We know greenery in urban areas may <a href="https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamanetworkopen/fullarticle/2739050">boost mental health</a> among older adults <a href="https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/25862991/">and can offset</a> traffic emissions.</p>
<p>Research conducted internationally suggests greenness surrounding schools can lead to <a href="https://www.pnas.org/content/112/26/7937">better cognitive development</a> in primary school-aged children. But there is <a href="https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/30717301/">still debate</a> over whether greenery around schools can boost academic performance.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/406360/original/file-20210615-3759-1j7f3ko.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Three girls sitting in a park with their arms around each other." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/406360/original/file-20210615-3759-1j7f3ko.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/406360/original/file-20210615-3759-1j7f3ko.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/406360/original/file-20210615-3759-1j7f3ko.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/406360/original/file-20210615-3759-1j7f3ko.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/406360/original/file-20210615-3759-1j7f3ko.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/406360/original/file-20210615-3759-1j7f3ko.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/406360/original/file-20210615-3759-1j7f3ko.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Green space is linked to healthy development in children.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/back-view-cute-girls-seated-on-273209597">Shutterstock</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Exposure to traffic-related air pollution at school, where children spend much of their waking hours, has been <a href="https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/30216772/">associated with poorer performance</a> in tests of brain health and development. Air pollution may be <a href="https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/25495759/">more detrimental to the health</a> of children compared with adults, due to children’s physiology and rapid growth.</p>
<p>We wanted to investigate if greenery and traffic pollution have clear links with academic performance, an indicator of cognitive development.</p>
<h2>Children perform better with more greenery</h2>
<p>We measured the amount of greenery in the school grounds, and then the traffic pollution and greenery around the school grounds within distances of 100m, 300m, 1,000m and 2,000m.</p>
<p>We found school-level academic performance in reading, numeracy, grammar and punctuation was better on average for schools located in areas with more greenery.</p>
<p>Our statistical modelling included data on socioeconomic levels of the area as well as variations in schools, such as parental occupation and proportion of Indigenous students. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/peoples-odds-of-loneliness-could-fall-by-up-to-half-if-cities-hit-30-green-space-targets-161989">People's odds of loneliness could fall by up to half if cities hit 30% green space targets</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>We compared the NAPLAN scores of similar socioeconomic-status schools and found higher scores in greener areas. For example, when comparing schools with the highest and lowest levels of green within 300 m, we found statistically significant differences of an average 20 points in reading scores for year 5.</p>
<p>Poorer performance was associated with higher levels of traffic-related air pollution surrounding schools. Reading scores in year 5 were around 16 points lower, on average, in schools with the highest levels of traffic-related air pollution within 300m of schools, compared with those with lowest levels. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/406362/original/file-20210615-21-l09ixs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Boy kicking soccer ball." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/406362/original/file-20210615-21-l09ixs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/406362/original/file-20210615-21-l09ixs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/406362/original/file-20210615-21-l09ixs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/406362/original/file-20210615-21-l09ixs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/406362/original/file-20210615-21-l09ixs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/406362/original/file-20210615-21-l09ixs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/406362/original/file-20210615-21-l09ixs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">There is a link between more green space around schools and higher academic scores.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/boy-kicking-ball-while-playing-street-1792638313">Shutterstock</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The specifics of the NAPLAN scores aren’t as important as the associations we found with greenery and traffic pollution. Our findings show preliminary evidence that greener environments with low traffic levels around primary schools may promote children’s academic performance.</p>
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<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/higher-density-cities-need-greening-to-stay-healthy-and-liveable-75840">Higher-density cities need greening to stay healthy and liveable</a>
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</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>Our exploratory study is the first of its kind in Melbourne, a metropolis with <a href="https://www.planning.vic.gov.au/policy-and-strategy/planning-for-melbourne/plan-melbourne">projected growth and plans</a> for future school developments and traffic infrastructure.</p>
<h2>How can greenery help?</h2>
<p>Greenery can <a href="https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/25862991/">help reduce air pollution in several ways</a> including filtering the air through plant surfaces and foliage.</p>
<p>But other factors (not examined in our study) that may play a role in the association between greenery and academic performance are related to the type and location of greenery.</p>
<p>Better performance among children in greener areas could be due to attention restoration, stress reduction or reducing harmful environmental exposures (such as noise from traffic and air pollution). </p>
<p>Town and school planners, as well as educators, should consider where schools are located and how their surrounding environments may be improved to promote childhood learning and health.</p>
<p>Additional steps to reduce traffic levels around schools should be encouraged where possible, as well as active transport and use of public transport to reduce the number of vehicles on the roads.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/161673/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The research in this article was conducted in collaboration with Joep Claesen and Dr Gonnie Klabbers at Maastricht University in the Netherlands, and Professor Mark Nieuwenhuijsen, ACU and ISGlobal, Spain.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Amanda J. Wheeler does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>A study showed that, on average, more greenery around primary schools was associated with better NAPLAN scores. Higher exposure to traffic-related pollution was associated with poorer scores.Alison Carver, Senior Research Fellow, Behaviour Environment and Cognition Program, Mary MacKillop Institute for Health Research, Australian Catholic UniversityAmanda J. Wheeler, Senior Research Fellow Behaviour, Environment and Cognition Research Program, Mary MacKillop Institute for Health Research, Australian Catholic UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1376592020-05-20T12:15:32Z2020-05-20T12:15:32ZNapping helps preschoolers unlock their full potential for learning<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/334377/original/file-20200512-82375-r3k6mw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=44%2C0%2C4947%2C4004&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Napping reboots the preschool brain and clears the deck for learning.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/children-napping-on-floor-of-preschool-classroom-royalty-free-image/122399167">Ingram Publishing via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>For many parents of young children, the highlight of their day is nap time – not for them, but for their little ones. Especially now, with most preschools closed, getting a child to nap is the golden ticket. Not only can it mean uninterrupted work or self-care time for parents, but their unrecognizable tyrants often wake as happy campers after a nap.</p>
<p>Researchers have validated this experience. One study presented <a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1365-2869.2011.00962.x">3-year-olds with an unsolvable puzzle</a>, one with a missing piece, either after they napped or after they missed their nap. They found the nap-deprived children showed more negative emotions – sadness, worry and anger – when faced with the puzzle than rested children did.</p>
<p><a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=bvGVrocAAAAJ&hl=en&oi=ao">As a cognitive neuroscientist</a>, <a href="https://www.somneurolab.com/">I study sleep</a>. My research shows that naps help young children regulate their emotions and solidify memories that accumulate so quickly at this age. </p>
<h2>Emotional sensitivity</h2>
<p>My colleagues and I recently demonstrated that nap-deprived preschoolers not only showed more negative emotions, but <a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/desc.12411">paid closer attention to the emotions around them</a> than rested children did. </p>
<p>We presented young children with pairs of faces on a computer screen, a neutral face and an emotional face – either happy or angry. Those faces were then removed to reveal a star hiding under one of them. The children were asked to identify which side of the screen the star was on by pressing a button.</p>
<figure>
<img src="https://cdn.theconversation.com/static_files/files/1041/XL9y2g-1.gif?1589548576" width="100%">
<figcaption><span class="caption">Where is the star?</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>This task measures whether a child is paying special attention to emotion stimuli or not. If a child is biased toward the emotional face, she will be quicker to press the button when the star is behind the emotional face than when it is behind the neutral face. </p>
<p>We found nap-deprived children were biased toward the emotional faces, responding 22 milliseconds faster than if they were rested. After a nap, however, children showed no bias. They responded equally whether the star was behind an emotional or neutral face. So a child who doesn’t nap is quicker to respond to emotional stimuli in his environment.</p>
<h2>A growing preschool agenda</h2>
<p>Although these results come as no surprise to parents, it is important to provide scientific backing of the nap benefit.</p>
<p>Most preschools offer a nap opportunity. However, the length of this period <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/2004/03/15/time-may-be-up-for-naps-in-pre-k-class/b6149643-6e7c-4997-88ff-588c0f740829/">has been shortened in recent years</a> because studies have found a preschool education not only <a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/desc.12411">improves school readiness</a> but is also associated with <a href="https://doi.org/10.1207/S1532480XADS0601_05">long-term academic performance</a> and even <a href="https://doi.org/10.1257/aer.100.2.188">health outcomes</a> such as <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.socscimed.2009.12.037">reduced obesity</a> and <a href="https://doi.org/10.1126/science.1248429">improved cardiovascular health</a>. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/334397/original/file-20200512-82361-hg5vsd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/334397/original/file-20200512-82361-hg5vsd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/334397/original/file-20200512-82361-hg5vsd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/334397/original/file-20200512-82361-hg5vsd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/334397/original/file-20200512-82361-hg5vsd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/334397/original/file-20200512-82361-hg5vsd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/334397/original/file-20200512-82361-hg5vsd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/334397/original/file-20200512-82361-hg5vsd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Rested preschoolers have a remarkable capacity for learning.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/pre-school-children-royalty-free-image/157720194">FatCamera via Getty images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>To capitalize on the advantages of preschool during this fertile learning period, regulatory agencies have added expectations such as <a href="https://www.edutopia.org/blog/tools-assess-sel-in-schools-susanne-a-denham">socio-emotional curriculum</a> and <a href="https://eclkc.ohs.acf.hhs.gov/oral-health/article/oral-health-policies-procedures-standards">even dental hygiene</a> to the preschool day. Sleep is often viewed as optional and is an easy target to cut when making room for more educational opportunities.</p>
<p>However, naps make it possible to reach these early education goals. Beyond the emotional regulation payoff, naps also provide a direct benefit to learning. Research shows when preschool children were read storybooks introducing new words, the children who napped after hearing the stories <a href="https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2014.00184">learned more of the new words</a> than the children who did not nap. Following learning opportunities with a nap enhances memory.</p>
<h2>Storing memories</h2>
<p>The reason napping enhances learning has to do with the way brains process new information. </p>
<p>Research in rodents suggests that while we sleep, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/s0896-6273(02)01096-6">memories are replayed</a>. Just as if you wanted to learn all the words to your favorite movie scene, you might replay that scene repeatedly, sleep is a time to replay memories without interference from ongoing learning. Furthermore, the research suggests <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.celrep.2020.107581">memories are replayed in fast-forward</a> during sleep, allowing them to be replayed repeatedly during the night.</p>
<p>This replay <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tins.2010.01.006">happens in the hippocampus</a>, an area of the brain where memories are processed in the short term. As memories are replayed in the hippocampus, they are moved (or copied) to unique areas of the cortex, making them more stable and easier to retrieve later. In the cortex, the <a href="https://dx.doi.org/10.1007%2Fs00426-011-0335-6">memories can be sorted and stored with other similar memories</a>. </p>
<p>Imagine the hippocampus as your desk at the end of the day, with stacks of papers and mail from different sources. Sleep moves these “papers” to the cortex, which is much more like a filing cabinet. Not only is there more space, but now when you want to find something, you can do so more quickly because of its organization.</p>
<p>In children, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neuroimage.2018.03.009">the hippocampus is less mature</a> – think of it as a smaller desk – so fewer memories can be held before there is catastrophic interference. This explains why naps are critical at this young age, and memories must be more frequently moved to the filing drawers. </p>
<h2>Naps in the time of coronavirus</h2>
<p>To parents still learning to implement a nap time, a few pointers:</p>
<ul>
<li><p>Maintain a consistent pre-nap routine. After lunch, give your child time to unwind, then join them in a quiet activity such as reading.</p></li>
<li><p>Maintain a consistent overnight sleep schedule. Keeping bedtime and wake time within a stable 30-minute window day to day will allow for an appropriate and predictable amount of sleep pressure to build up.</p></li>
<li><p>If you are out of the nap routine, you may need to retrain your child to nap consistently. Stay with them as they fall asleep (soothing with back rubbing) initially, and leave the room earlier and earlier over the following days.</p></li>
</ul>
<p>Not only is napping key to early education objectives, it is central to the emotional and cognitive development of young children. And it goes without saying, whether in school or at home, turning unrecognizable tyrants into happy campers is good for everyone.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/137659/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Rebecca Spencer receives funding from the National Institutes of Health (R01 AG040133; R01 HL111695; R21 HD094758) and the National Science Foundation (BCS 1749280).</span></em></p>Research shows napping helps young children learn, as well as enhancing their emotional well-being.Rebecca Spencer, Professor of Psychological and Brain Sciences, UMass AmherstLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1233782019-09-18T13:16:50Z2019-09-18T13:16:50ZStudent hunger at South African universities needs more attention<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/292589/original/file-20190916-19068-1ikwqrg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">It is erroneously assumed that university students are the elite and so don't experience hunger.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Food insecurity at tertiary institutions is aptly described as “<a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/j.1747-0080.2010.01496.x?casa_token=5_eegbAAlFEAAAAA:uvjTWn8OwM9HOQFOeXEGT6hwKS2hl4G1SVnO9mzZ_DIK0Quq4qhj2eGOjwEpTI_MFrnJ-8jxsggjC3TG">the skeleton in universities’ cupboards”</a> because it receives so little attention. Those in higher education are assumed to be an elite whose minimum basic needs are met. </p>
<p>But a <a href="https://studentsagainsthunger.org/hunger-on-campus/">study</a> of 34 colleges and universities in the United States found that 48% of students experience food insecurity, and 22% hunger. Of the black student population, 57% were food insecure, compared to 40% of white students. </p>
<p>The few studies on food insecurity – the lack of reliable access to sufficient quantities of affordable, nutritious food – at South African tertiary institutions show an alarming picture that mirrors the social divisions bedevilling the country. At the University of the Free State <a href="https://www.ajol.info/index.php/sajcn/article/viewFile/127895/117435">64.5%</a> of students are food insecure. </p>
<p>At the University of KwaZulu-Natal <a href="https://www.ajol.info/index.php/jfecs/article/view/179301">55%</a> of the students from low income families were food insecure. This is partly because they used some of the limited money they received as students to assist their needy families. </p>
<p>More than two decades after apartheid has left behind a legacy that still <a href="https://escholarship.org/uc/item/13m5c5vp">persists</a> of disenfranchisement and subjugation in many socioeconomic spheres. These include the education sector. Tertiary education under apartheid was highly fragmented by race and the politics of race. </p>
<p>The majority of black students at tertiary institutions across South Africa today are first or second generation to reach this level in their families and are from poorer families. This legacy doesn’t suddenly end because they enrol to study at institutions of higher learning. </p>
<p>Students also suffer the double burden of malnutrition – hunger and obesity. This results in stress, poor health, poor academic scores and increased drop-out rates. All of this wastes precious resources invested in higher education and perpetuates inter-generational poverty and inequality. </p>
<p>Students from all walks of life are affected. But <a href="http://pubs.sciepub.com/jfs/6/1/2/">the most impacted are black students</a> from poorer households who represent their families’ hopes as the first generation to access higher education. Students who go hungry are denied the possibility of achieving their full potential. Families, communities and the nation are denied the skills and full contribution such students could have made.</p>
<h2>Ending student hunger</h2>
<p>Poverty is the primary cause of the problem, combined with increases in food prices, fees, accommodation, transport, and books. Students are torn between different demands on limited resources. </p>
<p>The situation is made worse when students don’t have access to cooking facilities and campuses have limited options for affordable and healthy food. Sboniso Ngcobo, a student at the Durban University of Technology, <a href="https://www.saide.org.za/documents/Food_Security_-_press_release.pdf">put it plainly</a> when he said </p>
<blockquote>
<p>“most students… eat what is readily and cheaply available”.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Some universities have responded with interventions such as food banks, feeding programmes, and food gardens. The <a href="https://foodsecurity.ac.za/news/hidden-hunger-on-campus-negatively-impacts-performance/">Stop Hunger Now</a> initiative at the University of Johannesburg serves 7‚000 meals a week. Food-insecure students at the University of the Free State receive modest allowances and one balanced meal a day through the <a href="https://www.ufs.ac.za/giving/institutional-advancement-(giving)-home/lead-projects/the-no-student-hungry-programme">No Student Hungry Programme</a>. The University of the Witwatersrand started a <a href="https://witsvuvuzela.com/2019/04/27/small-scale-farmers-market-takes-root-at-wits/">farmers’ market</a> to make fresh produce accessible to students and benefit local farmers. </p>
<p>While all of these programmes have some positive impacts, there are challenges. These include the stigma attached to being seen as poor and hungry. Queuing for food handouts is often seen by students as one of the most undignified experiences they could have. The interventions so far have been ad hoc, not institutionalised, and fall far short of meeting people’s right to food.</p>
<p>To address this at an institutional level, the <a href="https://dullahomarinstitute.org.za/">Dullah Omar Institute</a> at the University of the Western Cape, together with the <a href="https://foodsecurity.ac.za/">DST-NRF Centre of Excellence in Food Security</a>, has rallied stakeholders – students, academics, university executives, and representatives from the state and civil society – under the Access to Food for Students Project. The aim is to find comprehensive solutions to food insecurity at tertiary institutions. </p>
<p>A <a href="https://dullahomarinstitute.org.za/socio-economic-rights/research-and-publications/publications/national-colloquium-meeting-report.pdf/view">national colloquium</a> held in 2018 discussed a human rights based approach. A series of advocacy meetings in 2019 produced a <a href="https://dullahomarinstitute.org.za/news/the-dullah-omar-institute-petitions-chapter-9-institution-on-food-insecurity-in-tertiary-institutions">petition</a>, which was submitted to the South African Human Rights Commission, calling for concerted action to address this crisis.</p>
<p>It’s essential that students be recognised as a vulnerable group deserving of intervention when it comes to food security. Students are mostly unemployed, aren’t eligible for social grants, and there’s no food security programme in place for them as there is in schools. </p>
<h2>What needs to be done</h2>
<p>Right to food policies need to cover students at public and private institutions, from training centres to universities. The higher education sector needs legislation, regulations and programmes of action with budgets to deal with this. </p>
<p>Students at state colleges and universities are in the care of the state, which is obliged to ensure that the students’ rights are fulfilled. Private education institutions must also be held to the same standards. </p>
<p>Tertiary institutions can be leaders in the just transition to sustainable food systems by integrating research and learning on food and food systems and developing food studies programmes. Institutions can also ensure that campuses are thriving food environments that make healthy food accessible where students live and study. </p>
<p>Beyond their campuses, tertiary institutions have a responsibility and opportunity to use their influence and their buying power to promote more just and sustainable food systems, such as through promoting agroecology and supporting black farmers and land reforms.</p>
<p>Practical initiatives – such as better structured food assistance, food gardens, opening space for small-scale food vendors on campuses – can meet some of the needs and show what’s possible. Ultimately, however, government legislation is needed to confirm students’ rights and the obligations of the state and tertiary institutions in this regard.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/123378/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Oluwafunmiola Adeniyi is the coordinator of the Access to Food for Students project at the Dullah Omar Institute, which receives funding from the DST- NRF Center of Excellence in Food Security</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Marc Wegerif does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Students suffer the double burden of malnutrition - hunger and obesity. This results in stress, ill health, poor academic results and increased drop-out rates.Marc Wegerif, Post-doctoral fellow, University of PretoriaOluwafunmiola Adeniyi, Doctoral Researcher, Dullah Omar Institute, University of the Western Cape. Coordinator of the Access to Food for Students Project of the Dullah Omar Institute, University of the Western CapeLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1149052019-04-16T22:46:03Z2019-04-16T22:46:03ZHow your smartphone can encourage active living<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/268887/original/file-20190411-44818-1luf18e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Smartphones make great citizen research tools. We take them everywhere and they have the functions (GPS, accelerometers, camera, audio, video) to sense, share and mobilize data between consenting citizens.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Shutterstock)</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Physical inactivity is the <a href="https://www.who.int/dietphysicalactivity/pa/en/">fourth leading risk factor for death globally</a> and has reached the status of a <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(12)60898-8">global pandemic</a> — a definition that is usually associated with <a href="https://www.who.int/csr/disease/swineflu/frequently_asked_questions/pandemic/en/">infectious diseases like influenza</a>. </p>
<p>Even <a href="https://doi.org/10.1186/s12966-017-0601-0">those of us who are physically active every day can be quite sedentary</a>. Working out every day, yet spending the rest of the day sitting in a chair — this has become the norm in the modern world.</p>
<p>We know that <a href="https://doi.org/10.1038/srep14901">even moderate increases in physical activity are associated with reduced risks of physical illness such as cancer</a>, heart disease, stroke, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1161/JAHA.115.002495">Type 2 diabetes</a> and <a href="https://doi.org/10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2018.2421">Parkinson’s disease</a>. We also know that <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/2055102917753853">exercise improves our mental health</a> and <a href="https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph15091901">academic performance</a>. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/how-to-stop-sitting-yourself-to-death-84425">How to stop sitting yourself to death</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>Apart from considerable risk of disease and death, physical inactivity is responsible for a substantial global economic burden, with <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/S2214-109X(18)30381-4">annual conservative costs to health-care systems worldwide exceeding US$53.8 billion</a>. </p>
<p>Despite this incriminating evidence against physical inactivity and despite investments in active-living interventions, there has been <a href="http://www.dx.doi.org/10.1016/S2214-109X(18)30381-4">little change in global physical inactivity levels</a>. </p>
<p>As an active-living researcher who uses technology to understand physical inactivity in populations and to influence policy, this state of passivity makes me extremely impatient. It is time to fight fire with fire, by repurposing the same devices that make us more inactive — smartphones. </p>
<h2>Mobilizing smartphones</h2>
<p>Before my colleagues and physical activity advocates shun this idea, I would like to clarify that I am absolutely not suggesting that we need more screen time.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/268888/original/file-20190411-44773-1nz6hae.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/268888/original/file-20190411-44773-1nz6hae.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/268888/original/file-20190411-44773-1nz6hae.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/268888/original/file-20190411-44773-1nz6hae.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/268888/original/file-20190411-44773-1nz6hae.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/268888/original/file-20190411-44773-1nz6hae.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/268888/original/file-20190411-44773-1nz6hae.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Researchers in Saskatchewan are using smartphones to measure people’s exercise patterns.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Shutterstock)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>First, <a href="https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/rewired-the-psychology-technology/201812/it-s-not-how-much-screen-time">screen time cannot be generalized</a>, as <a href="https://www.wired.com/story/year-in-review-tech-addiction-debate-all-wrong">it is accumulated across a multitude of devices with varied motivations and effects</a>. </p>
<p>Second, of all screen-time enabling devices, smartphones are the truly ubiquitous ones, which in essence makes them <a href="http://techcrunch.com/2015/06/02/6-1b-smartphone-users-globally-by-2020-overtaking-basic-fixed-phone-subscriptions/">tools of equity in the 21st century that provide access to billions of people around the world</a>.</p>
<p>Third, and probably more pertinent to physical activity, smartphones are the only digital tools almost all of us literally carry everywhere, and which have the functions (GPS, accelerometers, camera, audio, video) to <a href="https://doi.org/10.2196/publichealth.8953">sense, share and mobilize data between consenting citizens</a>. </p>
<p>Still, we don’t think about smartphones when tackling the physical inactivity pandemic. To me, the smartphone is the elephant in the room.</p>
<h2>Figuring out what makes us move</h2>
<p>There is no indication that we will revert back to the days without these devices, so why not leverage citizen-owned smartphones to address one of the most pressing health issues of our lifetime? </p>
<p>Active citizenship is not limited to physically active populations. In fact, I am not interested in making active individuals more active (I am one of those people) and thereby widening the existing gap between the active and the inactive. I am interested in making active people more engaged and inactive people more active — by using the same device that is currently a barrier to active living. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/269634/original/file-20190416-147522-1wj62p2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/269634/original/file-20190416-147522-1wj62p2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=281&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/269634/original/file-20190416-147522-1wj62p2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=281&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/269634/original/file-20190416-147522-1wj62p2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=281&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/269634/original/file-20190416-147522-1wj62p2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=353&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/269634/original/file-20190416-147522-1wj62p2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=353&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/269634/original/file-20190416-147522-1wj62p2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=353&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">A map showing the locations of citizen scientists who are contributing to the SMART Platform project in Saskatoon.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
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</figure>
<p>I am not sure if we can use screen time to reduce screen time, which is something that we are trying to understand. But, it is not radical to use a device that almost everyone owns to figure out what makes us move. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.smartstudysask.com/">SMART Platform is one such initiative. We are engaging citizens through their smartphones</a> to understand the amount of physical activity they accumulate and how, why, where, when and with whom they move. </p>
<h2>Engaging with people is the key</h2>
<p>By taking pictures, recording audio and video, among many other innovative approaches, people we are engaging with are helping us build complex pathways to not only understand active-living patterns, but also to develop initiatives to address urgent health crises. </p>
<p>For instance, through the SMART Platform we are conducting multiple projects such as the <a href="https://www.smartstudysask.com/smart-first-nations-youth">SMART Indigenous Youth</a>, which engages Indigenous youth and educators in rural and remote areas through smartphones to understand how land-based active living can improve mental health. </p>
<p>Youth- and educator-owned smartphones are playing an important role in remote engagement in this project, which is essentially a community-based intervention embedded into school curricula. </p>
<p>Each on-reserve school in this community trial is implementing its own culturally appropriate land-based active living intervention informed by traditional knowledge, language and community preferences. The land-based activities include plant identification, hunting, trapping and fishing, among other activities driven by the seasons. In essence, educators and youth are using their smartphones to provide their perspectives as citizen scientists to help explain how the intervention is changing patterns of youth behaviour.</p>
<p>Thus, the implications of effectively using this device go well beyond narrow discussions about screen time or even active living. This device can provide a voice to people and promote active citizenship. </p>
<p><em>If you are interested in starting a global movement to move, please contact us at smart.study@uregina.ca</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/114905/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Tarun Katapally receives funding from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research, Saskatchewan Health Research Foundation and the Saskatchewan Centre for Patient-Oriented Research.</span></em></p>We blame electronic devices for our increasingly sedentary behaviours. So why not harness them to study our movement patterns and tackle urgent health crises?Tarun Katapally, Associate Professor, University of ReginaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1128942019-03-26T14:04:46Z2019-03-26T14:04:46ZEducation in Nigeria is in a mess from top to bottom. Five things can fix it<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/264646/original/file-20190319-60956-zetlly.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Nigeria’s education system is based on the (1)-6-3-3-4 formula: one year pre-primary education, six years primary, three years junior secondary, three years senior secondary, and a minimum of four years tertiary education. </p>
<p>The model had been used successfully in China, Germany and Ghana before Nigeria adopted it in 1989.</p>
<p>But it’s never been fully implemented in Nigeria. Although successive governments have theoretically upheld its objectives, none has successfully implemented the policy. </p>
<p>Nigeria’s educational system is in assorted crises of infrastructural decay, neglect, waste of resources and sordid conditions of service. The country has over 10 million <a href="https://www.unicef.org/nigeria/education">out-of-school children</a>. That’s the highest in the world. Another 27 million children in school are <a href="http://www.thecable.ng/goodbye-to-buhari-illusion">performing very poorly</a>. Millions of Nigerians are half-educated, and over 60 million – or 30% – are <a href="https://www.premiumtimesng.com/news/more-news/250397-60-million-nigerians-are-illiterates-minister.html">illiterate</a>.</p>
<p>On top of this, many eligible young Nigerians can’t gain admission into public universities. At the same time prohibitive tuition fees, among other factors, are a barrier to the country’s private universities. </p>
<p>As the Buhari-Osinbajo government starts its second term it should focus on key areas that will dig Nigeria’s education system out of the deep hole it’s in. I have identified five priorities it should attend to first.</p>
<h2>Appointment</h2>
<p>The new government should appoint an expert Minister of Education, not a political party lackey. In the past, Nigeria’s educational system has fared better under expert education ministers who earned their stripes through the system.</p>
<p>Take Professor Jubril Aminu, who served in the portfolio from 1985 to 1990. The 6-3-3-4 system was inaugurated during his tenure. Aminu also introduced “<a href="https://www.ajouronline.com/index.php/AJHSS/article/view/2881">nomadic education</a>” in 1989 for nomadic Fulani and other migrant ethnic groups. </p>
<p>Aminu was followed by Professor Babs Fafunwa (1990 to 1992). He overhauled the national education policy. He also provided room for education in mother tongue, a universal practice which most African countries have not fully implemented. UNESCO recommends education in mother tongue because of its immense <a href="https://learningportal.iiep.unesco.org/en/issue-briefs/improve-learning/curriculum-and-materials/language-of-instruction">advantages</a>.</p>
<p>Lastly, under Professor Sam Egwu (2008 to 2010), a controversial agreement was signed between the government and the union <a href="https://www.premiumtimesng.com/wp-content/files/2013/10/FGN.ASUU-INITIALED-AGREEMENT-JAN.-2009.pdf">representing the country’s academic staff</a>. The agreement – signed in 2009 after drawn-out negotiations – stipulated conditions of service and remuneration for lecturers, the autonomy of universities and how the government should fund tertiary education. </p>
<p>But successive governments have violated the terms of the pact, claiming that they didn’t have the money to meet some of its terms. Officials claimed that sections of the pact were difficult, and in some cases impossible, to implement. However, the union rejects these claims and has accused the government of using delay tactics and questionable criticisms to frustrate the deal.</p>
<h2>Funding</h2>
<p>Funding is the biggest problem confronting Nigeria’s education system. The percentage of the budget allocated to education annually is abysmally low. In 2018, only <a href="https://punchng.com/2018-budget-and-the-paltry-allocation-for-education/">7.04%</a> was allocated to education. This is far below UNESCO’s recommended <a href="https://www.premiumtimesng.com/news/headlines/251927-fact-check-unesco-ever-recommend-26-per-cent-budgetary-allocation-education.html">15%-26%</a>.</p>
<p>Nigeria’s experience with the commercialisation and neglect of government secondary and primary school levels has led to poorer education outcomes. Nor is privatisation the answer: it’s only likely to widen the gap between the rich and the poor. It will deny many children affordable quality education, increase the rate of illiteracy and reduce academic performance at the tertiary level. </p>
<p>If the government continues to privatise government-owned universities, as is already the case with the proliferation of private universities with high fees, tertiary education will become the exclusive preserve of the rich upper class. This, in a country where more than 90% of the population is currently living in <a href="http://www.thecable.ng/goodbye-to-bujari-illusion">abject poverty</a>. </p>
<p>The government should also cut wasteful expenditure. For example, I would argue that the “school children feeding programme” is a massive drain on resources.</p>
<p>Government <a href="https://www.vanguardngr.com/2018/08/fg-spends-n49bn-on-school-feeding-programme-2/">reported</a> earlier this year that it allocated 220 billion naira for the programme and of that, about 50 billion naira was wasted. This money could have be spent on more pressing problems such as building more classrooms and equipping them, supplying teaching and learning materials and improving staff welfare and remuneration. </p>
<h2>Money for research</h2>
<p>Research suffers in three ways in Nigeria. First, researchers work without sponsorship, particularly in the core sciences. The Tertiary Education Trust Fund is virtually the only source of money. The Trust funds and sponsors research projects, gives grants for research and sponsors lecturers for academic conferences, among other things. But its resources are limited and its operations are slow, highly selective and sometimes politicised.</p>
<p>Secondly, study findings are often abandoned on library shelves because the government isn’t committed to research-oriented development. Researchers don’t have the means to promote their work and research findings. </p>
<p>Third, research output is mediocre and repetitive because there are no effective measures in place to track research output nationwide. </p>
<h2>Stop incessant strikes</h2>
<p>In 1978, the Academic Staff Union of Universities was <a href="https://www.thecable.ng/asuu-strike-beginning-greater-suffering">established</a> to represent academic staff in Nigeria’s universities. <a href="http://english.ohmynews.com/articleview/article_view.asp?menu=c10400&no=370195&rel_no=1">Since then</a>, there have been strikes almost every year, disrupting the academic calendar.</p>
<p>To stop these annual disruptions, the government must increase budgetary allocations to the sector and honour agreements that have been signed with the unions. </p>
<p>The only way that strikes will be stopped is if the welfare of all staff, from teachers to lecturers, is prioritised. </p>
<h2>In conclusion</h2>
<p>If these priorities are successfully implemented, Nigeria’s education system would be well on its way to realising government’s commitment to its own policies and the United Nations’ <a href="https://undocs.org/A/RES/70/1">Sustainable Development Goals</a>.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/112894/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Dr. Omowumi Olabode Steven Ekundayo is affiliated with with the Liberation Party and works with the party as an administrative consultant. </span></em></p>Nigeria has the world’s highest number of out-of-school children and over 60 million of its citizens are illiterate. Here’s what the country can do to improve its education sector.Omowumi Olabode Steven Ekundayo, University of BeninLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1117412019-02-13T19:18:39Z2019-02-13T19:18:39ZMale teachers are most likely to rate highly in university student feedback<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/258659/original/file-20190213-90491-1i6pkbe.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Students are invited to give feedback on teachers performance at Australian universities. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/back-view-man-presenting-students-lecture-478521652">from www.shutterstock.com</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>University students, like many in <a href="https://theconversation.com/to-achieve-gender-equality-we-must-first-tackle-our-unconscious-biases-92848">society</a>, demonstrate bias against women and particularly women from non-English speaking backgrounds. </p>
<p>That’s the take home message from a <a href="https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0209749">new and comprehensive analysis</a> of student experience surveys.</p>
<p>The study examined a large dataset consisting of more than 500,000 student responses collected over 2010 to 2016. It involved more than 3,000 teachers and 2,000 courses across five faculties at the University of New South Wales (UNSW), Sydney.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/study-of-1-6-million-grades-shows-little-gender-difference-in-maths-and-science-at-school-101242">Study of 1.6 million grades shows little gender difference in maths and science at school</a>
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<h2>Most bias in science and business</h2>
<p>Interestingly, the bias varies. </p>
<p>In parts of science and business the effects are clear. In the science and business faculties, a male teacher from an English-speaking background was more than twice as likely to get a higher score on a student evaluation than a female teacher from a non-English speaking background.</p>
<p>But in other areas, such as arts and social science, the effects are almost marginal. In engineering, effects were only detected for non-English speakers.</p>
<p>When one looks at the probability of scoring very high ratings, and dissects the categories into genders and cultural background, the results are clear. The disparities occur mostly at the very top end: this is where bias creeps in.</p>
<p>Previously the university had looked at just the average (mean) ratings of teachers of different genders, and found that they are more or less indistinguishable (unpublished data). But this new study goes further and provides information that is not evident in superficial analyses.</p>
<h2>Should we abandon student feedback?</h2>
<p>Student feedback can be a useful mechanism to understand the varied experiences of students. But student feedback is sometimes used inappropriately in staff performance evaluations, and that’s where the existence of bias creates serious problems.</p>
<p>One can make the case for abandoning student feedback – and many <a href="https://www.universityaffairs.ca/news/news-article/arbitration-decision-on-student-evaluations-of-teaching-applauded-by-faculty/">have</a>.</p>
<p>But it’s problematic to turn a deaf ear to the student voice, and that is not what national approaches such as the Quality in Learning and Teaching processes (<a href="https://www.qilt.edu.au/">QILT</a>) are doing.</p>
<p>This is because feedback can often be helpful. It can make things better. In addition, it is often positive. Sometimes the feedback is actually the way students say thanks. </p>
<p>However, sometimes it can be very hurtful and damaging, particularly if it is motivated by prejudice. We have to be aware of that and the barriers it can create. </p>
<p>We know that minority groups already suffer from <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-men-and-women-can-help-reduce-gender-bias-in-the-workplace-62041">reduced confidence and visibility</a>, so biased teacher evaluations may exaggerate existing inequities.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/how-understanding-animal-behaviour-can-liberate-us-from-gender-inequality-102981">How understanding animal behaviour can liberate us from gender inequality</a>
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<h2>What do the numbers mean?</h2>
<p>It is very important to be cautious when looking at the raw numbers.</p>
<p>Firstly, let’s consider what the numbers mean. Students are not evaluating teaching and learning in these surveys. They are telling us about their experiences – that’s why we call them MyExperience surveys at UNSW. We resist the idea that they are student evaluations of teaching, as are used in some settings.</p>
<p>Peer review can make contributions to evaluating teaching while assessments can help evaluate learning – however they may not be enough to overcome bias. When considering professional performance at UNSW, we do not exclude the feedback that students provide on their experience, but we look at a basket of indicators.</p>
<p>Secondly, one has to be serious about the biases that emerge, acknowledge them and confront the issues. Most universities pride themselves on being diverse and inclusive, and students support this. </p>
<p>But this study reminds us that we have work to do. Biases exist. The message is strong. You are more likely to score top ratings if you come from the category of white male: that is, if you are from the prevailing establishment.</p>
<h2>The influence of history</h2>
<p>These results may be surprising given the diversity of the student and staff body at Australian universities.</p>
<p>But our cultural milieu has been historically saturated by white males, and continuing biases exist. The important thing is to be aware of them, and when looking at the numbers to realise that the ratings are provided in the context of a particular society at a particular moment in time. </p>
<p>The scores should not be blindly accepted at face value.</p>
<p>Most universities, including ours, are working on being more inclusive. At UNSW a new Deputy Vice-Chancellor Equity, Diversity and Inclusion – <a href="https://www.unsw.edu.au/about-us/governance/management-board/deputy-vice-chancellor-equity-diversity-and-inclusion">Eileen Baldry</a> – was recently appointed, and we are working hard to combat bias and to introduce new strategies aimed at supporting diversity. For example, the university will introduce new training for members of promotion panels, explaining the biases detected in our new study. By understanding the problem, we can begin to address it.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/walking-into-a-headwind-what-it-feels-like-for-women-building-science-careers-102259">'Walking into a headwind' – what it feels like for women building science careers</a>
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<p>All staff across all of our universities can benefit from becoming more aware of issues around bias – especially those in powerful positions, such as members of promotion committees.</p>
<p>Reducing bias will have great benefits for society as university students represent a large proportion of future leaders in government and industry.</p>
<p>It is clear that negative stereotypes will contribute to the partiality that exists within our student community. Encouraging more women and cultural minorities at all levels in higher education, in leadership positions and in membership of key committees will help shrink these biases. </p>
<h2>Training in values</h2>
<p>Training students is challenging, especially at large modern universities such as UNSW, which has a cohort of over 50,000 coming from more than 100 countries. But our study found similar levels of bias in local students, as we did in international students.</p>
<p>In training students we have to remember that we provide knowledge, but also communicate values via our words and our behaviours. </p>
<p>If we are to continue to listen to the student experience, we need to be careful with the results. Rigorous statistical analyses such as this study, can help us recognise bias and work to address it. If our students graduate with less bias than when they entered their degree, we will be contributing to creating a more equitable and inclusive society in the future. </p>
<p>It is not easy to uproot prejudices but the data are clear. We expect people will be on board and be pleased to contribute to moving things in the right direction.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/111741/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Merlin Crossley is the Deputy Vice-Chancellor Academic at UNSW. He receives funding from the ARC and NHMRC. He is on the Editorial Board of The Conversation, the Board of the Australian Science Media Centre, and the Trust of the Australian Museum.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Emma Johnston is Dean of Science at UNSW and President of Science and Technology Australia (STA), STA is a member organisation representing >70,000 scientists and technologists across Australia. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Yanan Fan is Associate Professor at the School of Mathematics and Statistics at UNSW, and an Associate Investigator for the ARC Centre of Excellence for Mathematical and Statistical Frontiers (ACEMS).</span></em></p>A study or more than 500,000 surveys shows university students demonstrate bias against women teachers, and particularly women from non-English speaking backgrounds.Merlin Crossley, Deputy Vice-Chancellor Academic and Professor of Molecular Biology, UNSW SydneyEmma Johnston, Professor and Dean of Science, UNSW SydneyYanan Fan, Associate Professor of Statistics, UNSW SydneyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1116242019-02-13T19:12:29Z2019-02-13T19:12:29ZWhy we should (carefully) consider paying kids to learn<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/258666/original/file-20190213-90476-8trm3t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Paying students to do homework can actually improve their grades.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">www.shutterstock.com</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Over the past 15 years, we’ve seen a decline in the performance of Australian school students on international tests. On the <a href="https://www.acer.org/au/ozpisa">Programme for International Student Assessment</a> (PISA), Australia ranks a disappointing 20th in mathematics and 12th in reading. However you feel about standardised tests like NAPLAN and PISA, it certainly isn’t good news that we’re falling behind internationally. </p>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/258466/original/file-20190212-174864-1aau1ai.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/258466/original/file-20190212-174864-1aau1ai.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=260&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/258466/original/file-20190212-174864-1aau1ai.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=260&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/258466/original/file-20190212-174864-1aau1ai.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=260&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/258466/original/file-20190212-174864-1aau1ai.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=327&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/258466/original/file-20190212-174864-1aau1ai.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=327&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/258466/original/file-20190212-174864-1aau1ai.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=327&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Australian PISA Scores.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">ACER</span></span>
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<p>Over the same period, there has also been a revolution in education research through the use of randomised controlled trials to assess the effectiveness of different education policies. All manner of things have been tried – everything from smaller class sizes to intensive tutoring. And now paying kids to learn.</p>
<p>My coauthors and I did just that in two sets of <a href="http://research.economics.unsw.edu.au/richardholden/assets/verticalvshorizontal_wtables_2016.pdf">experiments</a> in Houston, Texas and Washington, D.C. We found if kids are paid for things such as attendance, good behaviour, short-cycle tests, and homework they were 1% more likely to go to school, committed 28% fewer behavioural infractions, and were 13.5% more likely to finish their homework.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/speaking-with-andrew-leigh-on-why-we-need-more-randomised-trials-in-policy-and-law-93282">Speaking with: Andrew Leigh on why we need more randomised trials in policy and law</a>
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<p>This led to a big increase in kids performing at a proficient level in mathematics and reading. This cost money – we distributed roughly AU$7 million in incentives to 6,875 kids. But measured financially, the approach where we gave students money for a number of things (such as behaviour, attendance <em>and</em> academic tasks) produced a 32% annual return on investment. </p>
<h2>Our experiments</h2>
<p>In Houston, we paid 1,734 fifth graders to do maths homework problems. We paid the parents too, if their child did their homework. </p>
<p>Some 50 schools were given educational software that fit in with the curriculum. Half (25) of those schools were randomly selected to be in the “treatment group”. This group of school kids got AU$2.80 per homework problem they mastered. Parents of the children got AU$2.80 per problem mastered, and teachers were eligible for bonuses of up to AU$14,000. </p>
<p>The 25 control schools got the identical educational software and training, but no financial incentives.</p>
<p>This randomised controlled trial allows for a simple test of the effect of financial incentives. This works because there are a large number of students in both the treatment and control group, and because they were randomly assigned. Differences in other factors like innate ability, home background, or parental involvement average out. </p>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/258669/original/file-20190213-90504-1lze50t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/258669/original/file-20190213-90504-1lze50t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/258669/original/file-20190213-90504-1lze50t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/258669/original/file-20190213-90504-1lze50t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/258669/original/file-20190213-90504-1lze50t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/258669/original/file-20190213-90504-1lze50t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/258669/original/file-20190213-90504-1lze50t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">We should be open minded about trying similar trials in Australia.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">from www.shutterstock.com</span></span>
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<p>So to understand the true, causal effect of the cash incentives on test scores we can just look at the difference in average test scores between the treatment and control kids.</p>
<p>This is the same principle underlying pharmaceutical trials. For example, some patients might get heart medication, while others get a placebo (a sugar pill). Researchers then look at the difference in heart functioning to figure out whether the medication works. </p>
<p>This approach is the gold standard for understanding the true effect of an intervention – in medicine, economics, or education.</p>
<p>The financial incentives we used in Houston led to children doing lots more homework, and to a fairly large increase in performance on standardised maths tests. But there was an almost equal offsetting decline in performance on reading tests. </p>
<p>The children responded to the incentives all right – by shifting their efforts from reading, which they didn’t receive incentives for, to maths.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/the-best-way-to-boost-the-economy-is-to-improve-the-lives-of-deprived-students-105522">The best way to boost the economy is to improve the lives of deprived students</a>
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<p>The most able 20% of students, based on their prior-year test scores, did way better in maths and no worse in reading. Incentives for the least able 20% of students were a disaster. They did lots more maths problems, did no better on maths tests, and far worse on reading tests.</p>
<p>By contrast, in Washington D.C. we provided incentives for sixth, seventh and eighth grade students on multiple measures, including: attendance, behaviour, short-cycle assessments, and two other variable measures chosen by each school. This led to a 17% increase in students scoring at or above proficiency for their grade in maths and a 15% increase in reading proficiency.</p>
<h2>Is it ethical to pay kids to learn?</h2>
<p>Paying children to study and behave might sound radical, or even unethical. Yet we provide incentives to kids all the time. Most parents use a combination of carrots and sticks as motivation already, such as screen time or treats.</p>
<p>A legitimate concern is that cash incentives might affect intrinsic motivation and turn learning into a transaction rather than a joy. The evidence from our study showed intrinsic motivation actually increased.</p>
<p>Perhaps the harder question is whether it’s ethical to use an approach that won’t help less advantaged students perform better and develop a love of learning.</p>
<h2>The path forward</h2>
<p>Nearly two decades of research in the US using randomised control trials has identified the positive causal effect of a range of interventions. <a href="https://scholar.harvard.edu/files/fryer/files/handbook_fryer_03.25.2016.pdf">These include</a> high-dose tutoring, out-of-school and community-based reading programs, smaller class sizes, better teachers, a culture of high expectations and, yes, financial incentives.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/smaller-class-sizes-improve-student-achievement-26155">Smaller class sizes improve student achievement</a>
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<p>In Australia, we should be open minded and look at the evidence. This will involve carefully designed randomised trials in Australian schools to determine what really works, and what the return on investment is.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/111624/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Richard Holden was previously an ARC Future Fellow.</span></em></p>Research shows small financial incentives for doing maths homework can increase maths achievement. But this raises some tricky ethical questions.Richard Holden, Professor of Economics, UNSW SydneyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1096212019-01-23T11:48:08Z2019-01-23T11:48:08ZWhy it’s wrong to label students ‘at-risk’<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/254420/original/file-20190117-32807-1skekoc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The term "at-risk" is frequently used to describe students from challenging circumstances. Some educators are working to change that.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/young-people-education-group-hispanic-students-583892335?src=ATrTAJnT0I6cVrwmvHbO2g-8-27">Diego Cervo/www.shutterstock.com</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Of all the terms used to describe students who don’t perform well in traditional educational settings, <a href="https://eric.ed.gov/?id=ED493702">few are used as frequently</a>– or as casually – as the term “at-risk.”</p>
<p>The term is regularly used in <a href="https://nces.ed.gov/pubs92/92042.pdf">federal</a> and <a href="https://www.kob.com/new-mexico-news/lawmakers-plan-to-provide-a-better-education-for-at-risk-students/5214101/">state</a> education policy discussions, as well as <a href="https://abcnews.go.com/beta-story-container/US/lebron-james-opening-school-risk-kids-culmination-decade/story?id=56913186">popular news articles</a> and <a href="https://www.apa.org/monitor/2012/02/at-risk-students.aspx">specialty trade journals</a>. It is <a href="https://www.childtrends.org/wp-content/uploads/2006/01/DefiningAtRisk1.pdf">often applied to large groups</a> of students with little regard for the <a href="https://www.nwp.org/cs/public/print/resource/2513">stigmatizing effect</a> that it can have on students.</p>
<p>As education researcher <a href="https://naeducation.org/our-members/gloria-ladson-billings/">Gloria Ladson-Billings</a> <a href="https://www.nwp.org/cs/public/print/resource/2513">once said of the term “at-risk,”</a> “We cannot saddle these babies at kindergarten with this label and expect them to proudly wear it for the next 13 years, and think, ‘Well, gee, I don’t know why they aren’t doing good.’” </p>
<p>My most recent encounter with the term “at-risk” came when I was tapped to review and <a href="http://dls.maryland.gov/pubs/prod/NoPblTabMtg/CmsnInnovEduc/2018_12_06_ToldsonFinalRecommendations2.pdf">critique</a> a draft report for the Maryland Commission on Innovation and Excellence in Education, also known as the “<a href="http://dls.maryland.gov/policy-areas/commission-on-innovation-and-excellence-in-education">Kirwan Commission</a>.”</p>
<p>The Kirwan Commission, chaired by <a href="https://www.agb.org/bios/william-e-kirwan">William E. Kirwan</a>, a longtime higher education leader, was <a href="http://mgaleg.maryland.gov/2016RS/chapters_noln/Ch_702_hb0999T.pdf">created in 2016</a> to make recommendations for improving education in Maryland. The initial draft of the Kirwan Commission report included a working group report called, “More Resources for At-risk Students.”</p>
<p>Fortunately, in this instance, commission members were aware of some common objections to using “at-risk” to categorize students and <a href="https://www.aclu-md.org/en/press-releases/race-equity-expert-delivers-highly-anticipated-second-address-kirwan-commission-what">publicly discussed</a> the <a href="https://www.edglossary.org/at-risk/">limitations</a> of using the term. Some of those objections included risk of social stigma to students and <a href="http://www2.ncte.org/blog/2017/02/redefining-risk-new-times-call-new-ground-rules/">lack of a uniform definition</a> of “at-risk.”</p>
<p>However, when it came to finding a better way to describe students who show lower levels of academic success because of nonacademic factors, such as poverty, trauma and lack of English proficiency, commission members were not sure what term to use.</p>
<p>As an <a href="http://www.qem.org/presidentbio/">outside consultant</a> for the commission, I was asked to come up with an acceptable alternative word or phrase. As I argue in my forthcoming book, “<a href="https://brill.com/view/title/54716">No BS (Bad Stats): Black People Need People Who Believe in Black People Enough Not to Believe Every Bad Thing They Hear about Black People</a>,” three things are essential to good decision making in education: good data, thoughtful analysis and compassionate understanding. What I have to say about the term “at-risk” will be based on those three things.</p>
<h2>Practical uses exist</h2>
<p>First, let’s acknowledge that, paired with good data, “<a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.3102/01623737015004380?fbclid=IwAR0hGmYiFL93HcnHT2SUCfCYcDBQvR_ZmqfuahwFO_TnIY3dIhx4uvqWiac">at-risk</a>” is practically useful and generally accepted in professional and academic settings. Used <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/25608745?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents">effectively</a>, identifying risk and protective factors can help mitigate harm to students.</p>
<p>For example, dating back to the 1960s, research about how <a href="http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/content/90/6/855.short">exposure to lead</a> placed children at risk for cognitive impairments helped educators create <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1240871/pdf/ehp0110-000563.pdf">safer learning environments</a> for students by removing lead from paint, toys and drinking water.</p>
<p>Today, in educational <a href="https://www.emeraldinsight.com/doi/abs/10.1108/S1479-3644(2009)0000007009">research</a> and <a href="https://www.fdschools.org/departments/student-services/at-risk-programs">practice</a>, educators <a href="https://eric.ed.gov/?id=ED493702">routinely use “at-risk”</a> to classify students who do not perform well in traditional educational settings. However, the factors that determine “at-risk” are often either unknown or beyond the control of the student, caregiver or educational provider.</p>
<p>As a scholar of counseling psychology – and as one who specializes in <a href="https://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=i9M5DQAAQBAJ&oi=fnd&pg=PA143&dq=Ivory+Toldson+counseling+psychology&ots=mwAv76j3Ea&sig=MBU-X3J5lMJkQKaVyz-LuvWdFvE#v=onepage&q=Ivory%20Toldson%20counseling%20psychology&f=false">counseling persons of black African ancestry</a> – I believe that to designate a child “at-risk” for factors such as growing up in a single-parent household, having a history of abuse or neglect, or how much money their families make or their race or ethnicity – adds more chaos and confusion to the situation. Instead, compassion and care are what are needed.</p>
<h2>Never use ‘at-risk’ as an adjective</h2>
<p>Using “at-risk” as an adjective for students is problematic. It makes “at-risk” a category like honors student, student athlete or college-bound student. “Risk” should describe a condition or situation, not a person. Therefore, “More Resources for At-risk Students” might more appropriately be “More Resources to Reduce Risk Factors for Students.”</p>
<h2>Be specific</h2>
<p>Assessments of risk should be based on good data and thoughtful analysis – not a catch-all phrase to describe a cluster of ill-defined conditions or characteristics. If the phrase “at-risk” must be used, it should be in a sentence such as: “‘This’ places students at risk for ‘that.’” If the “this” and “that” are not clearly defined, the “at-risk” characterization is useless at best, and harmful at worst. But when these variables are clearly defined, it better enables educators and others to come up with the solutions needed to reduce specific risk factors and improve outcomes.</p>
<h2>Skip the alternatives</h2>
<p>Common alternatives to “at-risk” include “historically underserved,” “disenfranchised” and “placed at-risk.” These indicators acknowledge that outside forces have either not served the individual student or population well, or have assigned the at-risk label to unwitting subjects.</p>
<p>These phrases move the conversation in the right direction. However, using these phrases still comes up short because they obscure the problem. For example, research suggests that <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/10509674.2010.519666">child abuse</a>, <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/10911359.2013.747407">poverty</a> and <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/25608729?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents">racism</a> can place students at risk. However, different strategies can lessen each risk. When the risk factors are more clearly identified, it puts educators and others in a better position to strategically confront the issues that impede student learning. It also better enables educators and others to view the individual student separately and apart from the particular risk.</p>
<p>Some have suggested replacing the term “at-risk” with “<a href="https://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=fQX2czepcW8C&oi=fnd&pg=PR9&dq=%22at-risk%22+%22at-promise%22&ots=yLkU8c1_8q&sig=Jf5h6Ya_p9gIh-p7n0RP7OmRNlM#v=onepage&q=%22at-risk%22%20%22at-promise%22&f=false">at-promise</a>.” While well-intended, the problem I see with that is it could easily be seen as a condescending euphemism for the term it was meant to replace.</p>
<h2>The best alternative for ‘at-risk’</h2>
<p>In my book, I describe an in-service training for staff members of a public high school, in which I asked the participants to describe the neighborhoods of their students. I heard phrases like “crime-ridden,” “broken homes” and “drug-infested.” I then asked if anyone grew up in neighborhoods that had similar characteristics. After several raised their hands, I asked, “How did you grow up in such a neighborhood and still become successful?” This question spurred a more meaningful discussion about the neighborhoods where students are from. It was a discussion that considered community assets – such as hope and resilience – against a more thoughtful examination of community challenges.</p>
<p>Every student has a combination of risk and protective factors among their friends, in their homes, schools and neighborhoods. These factors can help or hurt their academic potential. Students who live in poverty, or have been assigned to special education, or have a history of trauma, or who are English learners, may or may not be “at risk” depending on their respective protective factors. But when students are labeled “at-risk,” it serves to treat them as a problem because of their risk factors. Instead, students’ unique experiences and perspectives should be normalized, not marginalized. This reduces a problem known as <a href="https://www.edglossary.org/stereotype-threat/">“stereotype threat,”</a> a phenomenon in which students perform worse academically when they are worried about living up to a negative stereotype about their group.</p>
<p>For all these reasons and more, I believe the best alternative to describe “at-risk students” is simply “students.” For what it’s worth, the Kirwan Commission agrees. The commission recently <a href="http://dls.maryland.gov/pubs/prod/NoPblTabMtg/CmsnInnovEduc/2019_01_18_PolicyArea4.pdf?fbclid=IwAR2rCDkWkBSdXnbfQely6FiUiUoGU2aupfmXrxPVm360veL_VVceEa4KBXc">revised its call</a> for “More Resources for At-risk Students” to “More Resources to Ensure All Students are Successful.”</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/109621/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Ivory A. Toldson is affiliated with Howard University and The QEM Network. </span></em></p>Using the term ‘at-risk’ to describe students from challenging circumstances often creates more problems than it solves, a professor of counseling psychology argues.Ivory A. Toldson, Professor of Counseling Psychology, Howard UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1012942018-08-13T10:24:07Z2018-08-13T10:24:07ZThe start of high school doesn’t have to be stressful<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/231370/original/file-20180809-30473-yon3ff.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Up to two-thirds of students experience 'ninth grade shock,' which can affect everything from grades to mental health.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/teenager-girl-math-class-overwhelmed-by-1054012055?src=2kaclubvU9OYcmd6au5toA-5-31">ABO Photography/www.shutterstock.com</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>This month, <a href="https://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d17/tables/dt17_203.40.asp">more than 4 million students</a> across the nation will begin high school. </p>
<p>Many will do well. </p>
<p>But many will not.</p>
<p>Consider that nearly two-thirds of students will experience the <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1467-8624.2009.01265.x">“ninth-grade shock,”</a> which refers to a dramatic drop in a student’s academic performance.</p>
<p>Some students cope with this shock by avoiding challenges. For instance, they may <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1041608096900163">drop rigorous coursework</a>. Others may experience a hopelessness that results in <a href="https://consortium.uchicago.edu/sites/default/files/publications/Predictive%20Power%20of%20Ninth-Grade-Sept%202017-Consortium.pdf">failing their core classes</a>, such as English, science and math.</p>
<p>This should matter a great deal to parents, teachers and policymakers. Ultimately it should matter to the students themselves and society at large.</p>
<p>One of the biggest reasons it should matter is because students’ fate as they transition to ninth grade can have <a href="http://nymag.com/news/features/high-school-2013-1/">long-term consequences</a> not only for the students but for their home communities. We make these observations as <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=lxMgjf8AAAAJ&hl=en">research psychologists</a> who have studied <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=0c5kkR0AAAAJ&hl=en&oi=ao">how schools and families can help young people thrive</a>. </p>
<p>In the new global economy, students who fail to finish ninth grade with passing grades in college preparatory coursework are <a href="https://consortium.uchicago.edu/publications/predictive-power-ninth-grade-gpa">very unlikely to graduate on time and go on to get jobs</a>. One study has calculated that the lifetime benefit to the local economy for a single additional student who completes high school is <a href="http://azmayors.org/our-work/az-mayors-report/">half a million dollars or more</a>. This is based on higher earnings and avoided costs in health care, crime, welfare dependence and other things.</p>
<h2>Lifetime consequences</h2>
<p>The consequences of doing poorly in the ninth grade can impact more than students’ ability to find a good job. It can also impact the extent to which they enjoy life. </p>
<p>Students lose the adults and many of the friends they turned to for support <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1467-8624.2009.01265">when they move from eighth to ninth grade.</a> One study of ninth grade students <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/23096155">found that 50 percent of friendships</a> among ninth graders changed from one month to the next, signaling striking instability in friendships. </p>
<p>In addition, <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0890856714007321">studies</a> <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3488279/">find</a> the <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18047232">first year of high school</a> typically shows one of the greatest increases in depression of any year over the lifespan.</p>
<p><a href="https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10648-011-9152-0">Researchers think</a> that one explanation is that ties to friends are severed, while academic demands are rising. </p>
<p>Furthermore, most adult cases of clinical depression first <a href="https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamapsychiatry/fullarticle/189668">emerge in adolescence</a>. The World Health Organization reports that depression has <a href="http://www.who.int/mental_health/management/depression/wfmh_paper_depression_wmhd_2012.pdf">the greatest burden</a> of disease, in terms of the total cost of treatment and the loss of productivity, of any affliction worldwide.</p>
<h2>In search of solutions</h2>
<p>Given all that’s riding on having a successful ninth grade experience, it pays to explore what can be done to improve the academic, social and emotional challenges of the transition to high school. </p>
<p>So far, our <a href="http://psycnet.apa.org/fulltext/2014-19904-001.html">studies</a> have yielded one main insight: Students’ beliefs about change – their beliefs about whether people are stuck one way forever, or whether people can change their traits and abilities – are related to their ability to cope, succeed academically and maintain good mental health. <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/00461520.2012.722805">Past research</a> has called these beliefs “mindsets,” with a “fixed mindset” referring to the belief that people cannot change and a “growth mindset” referring to the belief that people can change.</p>
<p>We found that when students felt like their <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/cdev.13116">declining grades</a> were a sign that they will never be successful, or when they feel like a loss of support from friends means that they <a href="http://psycnet.apa.org/fulltext/2014-19904-001.html">will be stuck being “not likable” for life</a>, then they have coped poorly.</p>
<p>In one recent study, we <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/cdev.13116">examined 360 adolescents’ beliefs</a> about the nature of “smartness” – that is, their fixed mindsets about intelligence.</p>
<p>We then assessed biological stress responses for students whose grades were dropping by examining their saliva for cortisol levels — a so-called “<a href="https://developingchild.harvard.edu/science/key-concepts/toxic-stress/">toxic stress</a>” hormone that is secreted by the body when people feel threatened. </p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/231379/original/file-20180809-30452-1nv26ae.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/231379/original/file-20180809-30452-1nv26ae.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/231379/original/file-20180809-30452-1nv26ae.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/231379/original/file-20180809-30452-1nv26ae.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/231379/original/file-20180809-30452-1nv26ae.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/231379/original/file-20180809-30452-1nv26ae.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/231379/original/file-20180809-30452-1nv26ae.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/231379/original/file-20180809-30452-1nv26ae.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Students who believe their situation can change tend to cope better with stress, researchers say.</span>
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<p>Students who believed that intelligence is fixed – that you are stuck being “not smart” if you struggle in school – showed higher cortisol levels in their saliva when their GPAs were declining at the beginning of ninth grade. If students believed that intelligence could improve – that is to say, when they held more of a growth mindset of intelligence – we detected less cortisol in the saliva of students whose grades were declining. </p>
<p>This was an exciting result because it showed that the body’s stress responses are not determined solely by one’s GPA. Instead, declining grades only predicted worse stress hormones among students who believed that worsening grades were a permanent and hopeless state of affairs.</p>
<h2>Keeping stress at bay</h2>
<p>We also investigated the <a href="http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0956797616649604?journalCode=pssa">social side of the high school transition</a>. In this study, instead of teaching students that their smartness can change, we taught them that their social standing – that is, whether you are bullied or excluded or left out – can change over time. We then looked at high school students’ stress responses to daily social difficulties. That is, we taught them a growth mindset about their social lives. </p>
<p>In this study, students came into the laboratory and were asked to give a public speech in front of upper-year students. The topic of the speech was what makes someone popular in high school. Following this, students had to complete a difficult mental math task in front of the same upper-year students. This is called the <a href="https://www.karger.com/Article/Abstract/119004">Trier Social Stress Test</a>, and it has proven to be an effective and ethical way to examine physiological signatures of stress responses. Public speaking is stressful but is no different from common experiences in high school. Students are thoroughly debriefed and have the opportunity to have a more lighthearted interaction with the upper-year students afterward. Parents also consented before allowing their children to participate.</p>
<p>Students who were not taught that people can change showed poor stress responses. When these students gave the speech, their blood vessels contracted and their hearts pumped less blood through the body – both responses that the body shows when it is preparing for damage or defeat after a physical threat. Then they gave worse speeches and made more mistakes in math. </p>
<p>But when students were taught that people can change, they had better responses to stress, in part because they felt like they had the resources to deal with the demanding situation. Students who got the growth mindset intervention showed less-constricted blood vessels and their hearts pumped more blood – both of which contributed to more oxygen getting to the brain, and, ultimately, better performance on the speech and mental math tasks. </p>
<p>These findings lead to several possibilities that we and others are investigating further. </p>
<p>First, we are working to replicate these findings in more diverse school communities. We want to know in which types of schools and for which kinds of students these growth mindset ideas help young people adapt to the challenges of high school. And where do they need to be paired with other resources to have their strongest effects? We have made a <a href="https://labs.la.utexas.edu/adrg/expert-beta-testing-survey/">free beta version of our intervention</a> available to schools or parents.</p>
<p>We also hope to learn how teachers, parents or school counselors can help students keep their ongoing academic or social difficulties in perspective. We wonder what would happen if schools helped to make beliefs about the potential for change and improvement a larger feature of the overall school culture, especially for students starting the ninth grade.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/101294/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>David Yeager receives or has received funding for his research from the NSF, the NICHD, the William T. Grant Foundation, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, the Raikes Foundation, the Gates Foundation, the Bezos Family Foundation, and the Templeton Foundation. These entities place no constraints on the publication of results from scientific studies. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Hae Yeon Lee does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>While transitioning to the ninth grade can be stressful for many students, teaching students to be more optimistic can better enable them to cope with the challenges, research psychologists argue.David Yeager, Associate Professor of Psychology, The University of Texas at AustinHae Yeon Lee, PhD student in Psychology, The University of Texas at AustinLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/882302017-12-20T20:43:16Z2017-12-20T20:43:16ZWhy parents should check twice before offering holiday sweets<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/199772/original/file-20171218-27595-cce14.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A first-grader eats a candy cane while watching the inauguration of Barack Obama in 2009.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/Inauguration-A-Nation-Gathers/4078cc1b985c42888ceb7c83d55aec85/1/0">Chris O'Meara/AP</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Over the holidays, most families will indulge in sugary treats. But before you offer your child a candy cane or chocolate coin, consider what research tells us about how kids perform in math is affected by what they eat for lunch – and consider making some new holiday traditions.</p>
<p>It may seem like a few candy canes and cookies won’t really pose much of a threat. But two potentially harmful things can happen when kids fill up on sweets. First, as your mother may have told you, a child who is full on sweet treats has less room for more nutritious food. Secondly, since <a href="https://theconversation.com/fact-or-fiction-is-sugar-addictive-73340">sugar apparently has addictive qualities</a>, those who eat a sugary treat could potentially crave more. So rather than let your child fill up on holiday-themed junk food, it would be better to cut back on the sweets and help build on healthy eating habits more kids are learning at school.</p>
<p>The position I take is based on extensive <a href="http://au.blogs.american.edu/files/2016/02/Report_HealthySchoolAct_FINAL.pdf">research</a> that my colleagues and I at <a href="https://soeonline.american.edu/">American University</a> have conducted into the connection between nutrition standards in schools and academic performance. We conducted this research following the implementation of Washington, D.C.’s <a href="https://osse.dc.gov/publication/healthy-schools-act-legislation">Healthy Schools Act</a> of 2010.</p>
<p>While more research is needed to better understand the specifics of the relationship between nutrition and learning, it is clear there is a <a href="http://www.rmc.org/wpdev/wp-content/uploads/2012/12/A-Missing-Link-in-School-Reforms-to-Close-the-Achievement-Gap.pdf">link</a> between classroom success and diet habits.</p>
<p>Our own <a href="http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0195666315002883">research</a> found that children in D.C. who attend schools with healthy school lunch options, more time for physical activity and more messages about health were more likely to perform 10 percent better in mathematics as measured by the <a href="http://www.learndc.org/">district-wide</a> achievement test.</p>
<p>But, of course, it’s not just the food consumed in school that matters. More than 30 percent of children in the United States are overweight or obese. It is <a href="https://www.cdc.gov/healthyschools/obesity/facts.htm">well-established</a> that these children are at increased risk now and in the future as adults for Type II diabetes, hypertension, and bone and joint problems that were once largely confined to adults. However, these types of physical diseases are not the only serious threats to children’s health and well-being. Researchers are finding that obesity is <a href="http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0006322309002261">linked</a> to the emergence of cognitive deficits that begin in childhood and continue throughout life. In fact, brain disorders associated with Alzheimer’s disease and other late-life <a href="http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0006322309002261">dementias</a> may begin at least 50 years before those disorders are clinically diagnosed. Poor eating habits at home and school can keep students from being successful in the short term, and have detrimental effects long term. </p>
<p>We <a href="http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0195666315002883">found</a> the positive relationship between the combination of physical activity and nutrition and mathematics performance was biggest at schools with a higher percentage of students receiving free and reduced-price meals. This suggests school meals tend to be more healthful than those brought from home. It could also mean that kids at these more disadvantaged schools had the most to gain from putting in a free lunch program.</p>
<p>The <a href="https://www.fns.usda.gov/school-meals/healthy-hunger-free-kids-act">Healthy Hunger-Free Kids Act</a> set new nutrition standards such as access to local foods, more fresh vegetables and fruits, and low-fat dairy products that schools must follow to be a part of the Agriculture Department’s <a href="https://www.fns.usda.gov/nslp/national-school-lunch-program-nslp">school lunch program</a>. School districts and their food service offices <a href="https://www.fns.usda.gov/pressrelease/2014/009814">responded quickly</a> to develop meals that would meet the new nutrition standards and that kids would still want to eat. But in many instances these healthier meals have been met with <a href="http://policymatters.illinois.edu/the-potentially-negative-consequences-associated-with-the-healthy-hunger-free-kids-act/">resistance</a> from both parents and students. </p>
<p>Despite that pushback, there has been <a href="http://time.com/4163451/healthier-school-lunch-study/">increased attention</a> toward boosting the consumption of healthful foods in school cafeterias. This is good news for our students, because <a href="http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1499404606601139">research</a>) shows that consistent exposure to healthful foods at school and home can increase long term healthy eating, especially in younger children.</p>
<p>For instance, one <a href="http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0950329304000357">study</a> found that, in large part, food “preferences were stable from 2- to 3-year-olds until young adulthood.” Another <a href="http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1499404606601139">study</a> found that one of the “strongest predictors of the number of foods liked at age 8 years…[is] the number liked at 4 years.”</p>
<p>In Washington, D.C. and Arlington, Virginia schools, <a href="http://vg5ly4ql7e.scholar.serialssolutions.com/?sid=google&auinit=AM&aulast=Snelling&atitle=The+Effect+of+Nutrient%E2%80%90Based+Standards+on+Competitive+Foods+in+3+Schools:+Potential+Savings+in+Kilocalories+and+Grams+of+Fat&id=doi:10.1111/j.1746-1561.2011.00671.x&title=The+Journal+of+school+health&volume=82&issue=2&date=2012&spage=91&issn=0022-4391">research</a> has shown that by letting students help select how vegetables are prepared or pairing a fruit and vegetable, we can get them to eat more healthful foods.</p>
<p>Such efforts are crucial because – as we have established – helping kids develop a taste for healthful foods early in life sets them on a path to better school performance and becoming a healthier adult.</p>
<p>Will a few extra treats during the holidays mean the difference in your child’s academic career? Probably not. But by emphasizing healthy eating during the holidays, parents can help their children hold onto healthy habits that will last them a lifetime.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/88230/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Sarah Irvine Belson receives funding from the National Science Foundation, the Toyota USA Foundation, and the US Department of Agriculture. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Anastasia Snelling receives funding from the National Institute of Food and Agriculture.</span></em></p>A researcher warns that the sugary treats of the holiday season can set the stage for children’s long-term health and academic success if left unchecked.Sarah Irvine Belson, Associate Professor of Education, American UniversityAnastasia Snelling, Department Chair, Health Studies, American UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/866682017-11-13T23:16:07Z2017-11-13T23:16:07ZScience in the home boosts children’s academic success<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/194201/original/file-20171110-29364-495xvn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Research shows that when parents engage in simple science projects with their kids at home, it boosts their learning in school. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Shutterstock)</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Did you know that children spend just 14 per cent of their waking time between Kindergarten and the end of Grade 12 in school? </p>
<p>Given this startling statistic, it comes as no surprise that much of children’s learning happens “out there” — in the playground, during extracurricular activities, at a museum, on a walk, via the media, and, perhaps most importantly, at home.</p>
<p>I am the director of the Education Community Outreach Centre at Queen’s University and coordinator of Science Rendezvous Kingston. Science Rendezvous is Canada’s largest pop-up science, technology and engineering and mathematics (STEM) festival. I also develop mathematics content for two educational children’s programs, <em>The Prime Radicals</em> and <em>mathXplosion</em>. I have developed two provincial toolkits for parents about <a href="http://www.ontariodirectors.ca/parent_engagement-math/en/">inspiring children to learn, love</a> and <a href="http://www.mathpathontario.ca">choose math</a> and I am the “math talk” consultant for <em>MathStoryTime</em>.</p>
<p>I have worked for decades to engage parents because I believe that families and schools have much to learn from and share with each other. Schools have formal knowledge of teaching and learning, curriculum, assessment and evaluation. And parents know their children’s motivations, skills and interests.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/194200/original/file-20171110-29358-1sjewqq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/194200/original/file-20171110-29358-1sjewqq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=467&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/194200/original/file-20171110-29358-1sjewqq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=467&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/194200/original/file-20171110-29358-1sjewqq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=467&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/194200/original/file-20171110-29358-1sjewqq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=587&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/194200/original/file-20171110-29358-1sjewqq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=587&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/194200/original/file-20171110-29358-1sjewqq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=587&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Science at home doesn’t need to be daunting. It can be as simple as planting seeds with a child, or helping them collect leaves and bugs.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Shutterstock)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The research also shows that informal environments including the home — also called out-of-school-time [OST] settings — play an important role in promoting STEM learning. They do this by <a href="http://doi.org/10.1080/01443410903353302">sparking student interest</a> and <a href="https://www.nap.edu/catalog/12190/learning-science-in-informal-environments-people-places-and-pursuits">providing opportunities to broaden and deepen engagement in STEM content</a>.</p>
<h2>The benefits of science at home</h2>
<p>Empirical evidence clearly suggests that OST experiences <a href="http://doi.org/10.1080/09500690701494084">strengthen and enrich school STEM learning</a> by <a href="http://www.informalscience.org/sites/default/files/MakingScienceMatter.pdf">reinforcing scientific concepts and practices</a> introduced during the school day. These experiences can be in museums, after-school programs, science and technology centres, libraries, aquariums, zoos, botanical gardens and at the kitchen table.</p>
<p>OST experiences also promote an appreciation for, and interest in, the pursuit of STEM in school and in daily life. They help learners understand the daily relevance of science to their lives, the depth and breadth of science as a field of inquiry, and <a href="https://www.nap.edu/catalog/12614/surrounded-by-science-learning-science-in-informal-environments">what it might be like to choose to do science in the world</a>, either as a professional or a citizen scientist.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/194202/original/file-20171110-29374-1ip24oi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/194202/original/file-20171110-29374-1ip24oi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/194202/original/file-20171110-29374-1ip24oi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/194202/original/file-20171110-29374-1ip24oi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/194202/original/file-20171110-29374-1ip24oi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/194202/original/file-20171110-29374-1ip24oi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/194202/original/file-20171110-29374-1ip24oi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption"></span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Shutterstock)</span></span>
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<p>It is no surprise then, that informal science education researchers and educators are <a href="http://www.nsta.org/about/positions/parents.aspx">actively reaching out to parents</a>, asking them to <a href="http://www.letstalkscience.ca/About-Us/Research-and-Publications">enthusiastically encourage and support</a> children’s science learning at home, in school, and through their communities.</p>
<h2>Any parent can be a STEM mentor</h2>
<p>Parents are their children’s first and most important teachers. Their values, beliefs and actions have <a href="http://doi.org/10.1023/A:1009048817385">enormous influence on their child’s educational decision-making and achievement</a>. When parents convey an interest and excitement for STEM subjects, children <a href="http://doi.org/10.1177/0042085905274540">benefit attitudinally and academically</a>. </p>
<p>When parents make it clear that they value STEM subjects and believe it is important to study them, they positively influence the way their child views these subjects and <a href="http://doi.org/10.1177/0956797615592630">support their child’s academic success in those areas</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/194203/original/file-20171110-29328-18urtq5.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/194203/original/file-20171110-29328-18urtq5.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/194203/original/file-20171110-29328-18urtq5.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/194203/original/file-20171110-29328-18urtq5.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/194203/original/file-20171110-29328-18urtq5.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=504&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/194203/original/file-20171110-29328-18urtq5.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=504&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/194203/original/file-20171110-29328-18urtq5.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=504&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A mother supporting her daughter at Science Rendezvous Kingston 2017.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Garrett Elliott)</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Informal STEM learning at home is about parents and children exploring science in fun, hands-on ways outside of class. Brief, high-quality parent-child interactions about STEM can make a profound difference to how children perceive STEM subjects and succeed in them academically. </p>
<p>One study, for example, showed that when caregivers used a mobile app to bring a little bit of math into the home, <a href="http://doi.org/10.1126/science.aac7427">their elementary school children showed improved math skills within months</a>. Improvements were most dramatic in families where the caregivers reported themselves to be anxious about math.</p>
<h2>Books and leaves and bugs</h2>
<p>When parents actively participate in kitchen-sink experiments, they become STEM mentors. When parents become partners by contributing specimens to a child’s leaf or bug collection and then go a step farther by helping their child to categorize those treasures with the help of an illustrated website, they are modelling what scientists do. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/194205/original/file-20171110-29328-1r52ubx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/194205/original/file-20171110-29328-1r52ubx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/194205/original/file-20171110-29328-1r52ubx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/194205/original/file-20171110-29328-1r52ubx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/194205/original/file-20171110-29328-1r52ubx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/194205/original/file-20171110-29328-1r52ubx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/194205/original/file-20171110-29328-1r52ubx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption"></span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Shutterstock)</span></span>
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<p>When parents curl up with their children to read a science book together, such as <em>The Way Things Work</em> by David Macaulay, and then dig out the can opener to take a closer look, they are modelling learning. </p>
<p>When families watch age-appropriate television together — like <a href="http://pbskids.org/sid/">Sid the Science Kid</a>, <a href="https://projectmc2.mgae.com/">Project Mc²</a> or <a href="http://www.pbs.org/show/nova/">NOVA</a> — parents are encouraging connections among STEM topics, everyday life, career possibilities and scientific literacy through their attitudes and actions.</p>
<p>Here are two very simple experiments that can be done at home, using everyday household items.</p>
<h2><em>Experiment 1: Rolling, Rolling, Rolling</em></h2>
<p><strong>You will need</strong>: An empty soda can, an inflated balloon and one head of hair.</p>
<p><strong>Directions</strong>: Place the can on its side on a flat surface (a table or a smooth floor will do). Then rub the balloon back and forth through your hair. Hold the balloon close to the can without actually touching the can.</p>
<p>You should see the can roll towards the balloon without touching it!</p>
<p><strong>Why does it work?</strong> When you rub the balloon through your hair, tiny, invisible particles called electrons (which have a negative charge) build up on the surface of the balloon, creating static electricity. They electrons have the power to pull very light objects (like the soda can) towards them.</p>
<h2><em>Experiment 2: Blowing up a balloon without blowing</em></h2>
<p><strong>You will need</strong>: A balloon, about 40 ml of water (a cup is about 250 ml so you don’t need much), a soft drink bottle, a drinking straw, the juice from a lemon (or two tablespoons of vinegar) and three teaspoons of baking soda.</p>
<p><strong>Directions</strong>: Stretch out the balloon. Pour 40 ml of water into the soft drink bottle. Add the baking soda, stirring with the straw until it is dissolved. Pour the lemon juice (or vinegar) in and quickly put the stretched balloon over the mouth of the bottle.</p>
<p>If all goes well then your balloon should inflate!</p>
<p><strong>Why does it work?</strong> Adding the lemon juice to the baking soda creates a chemical reaction. The baking soda is a base, while the lemon juice is an acid, when the two combine they create carbon dioxide gas (CO₂). The gas rises and travels up through the neck of soft drink bottle, where it is trapped inside the balloon and blows it up.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/86668/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Lynda Colgan receives funding from SSHRC, NSERC PromoScience, CODE and Ministry of Education for the Province of Ontario.</span></em></p>From collecting bugs to using math apps, there are many ways parents can engage in STEM activities with their kids to support their learning.Lynda Colgan, Professor of Elementary Mathematics, Queen's University, OntarioLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/722082017-02-08T15:36:50Z2017-02-08T15:36:50ZBetter note-taking can help students who struggle with English<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/154945/original/image-20170131-13261-mkv1t5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Proper note construction helps students identify the gaps in their understanding.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Starting a university degree can be something of a culture shock. Students enter university after spending years in a closely structured school learning environment. They discover that there’s a different expectation in higher education: the onus of learning falls mostly on them.</p>
<p>In South Africa, another complication arises for those students who speak English as a second (or even third) language (ESL speakers). That’s a large number, given that English is only the country’s <a href="http://www.statssa.gov.za/census/census_2011/census_products/Census_2011_Census_in_brief.pdf">fourth most commonly spoken</a> home language. They are not learning in their mother tongues. And “code switching” – the alternation between their home language and English, while fairly common in school classrooms, isn’t practised in most university lecture halls. </p>
<p>In some subjects, like the Sciences, ESL students find themselves negotiating not only the language of instruction and communication, but also the unfamiliar terminology of the discourse. This demand on their cognitive attention places a huge strain on students’ ability to adopt deep approaches to learning inside and outside the classroom. They have to expend a lot of energy on decoding the material they must learn. </p>
<p>We wanted to know what might be done in South African universities to scaffold independent and effective learning among students who are second language English speakers. So we focused on an area that many lecturers probably ignore: <a href="http://sajs.co.za/impact-mother-tongue-construction-notes-and-first-year-academic-performance/shalini-dukhan-ann-cameron-elisabeth-brenner">the practice of note taking</a>.</p>
<p>We found that when ESL students were taught to personalise their notes and incorporate content from various resources, they were better able to form links and connections between new knowledge and their current understanding of concepts.</p>
<h2>Extra burdens</h2>
<p>During apartheid, English was taught only at a basic level to black pupils. With the shift to democracy in 1994, pupils learned in their mother tongues until Grade 5, when they are around 11 years old. Thereafter teaching and learning is expected to be done in English.</p>
<p>There’s been a global, ongoing debate about the link between the language of instruction and successful student learning. And recent research has shown the benefit of teaching pupils in their home language. </p>
<p>Different research has also revealed just how <a href="http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/13670050802153137">prevalent code-switching</a> is in some schools, all the way through the final Grade 12 year. It’s especially common when teachers want to explain complex content but extremely rare at university. This means ESL students lose another plank of support.</p>
<p>Learning is very much an independent activity at university. Students are expected to use resources like textbooks or research articles to supplement the material that’s covered in class. However, this becomes an extra burden for ESL students. They have to spend excessive amounts of time decoding the content before they can begin to make sense of it. </p>
<p>University courses tend to move fast. ESL students may try to keep up by using surface learning strategies like rote learning, since their limited exposure to English means they struggle with comprehension and meaning-making. They risk building only foundational concepts instead of deepening their understanding, which profoundly affects them in class <em>and</em> out of class learning. </p>
<p>These students are also affected during tests and exams, where their lack of language fluency affects their ability to interpret and answer questions appropriately or satisfactorily. All of this increases their risk of failure.</p>
<p>Our research suggests that improved note-taking practises might help these students considerably.</p>
<h2>The value of writing for learning</h2>
<p>Research has shown that the process of writing can be used as a tool to stimulate and encourage deep learning approaches. Lecturers traditionally take little responsibility for the quality of notes that students produce during lectures. Students receive little, if any, feedback about their notes. But these notes are important, serving as an “external” storage mechanism for information and knowledge. Their quality is critical for learning.</p>
<p>With limited support, first year students tend to fall back on their school experience to guide them. They end up learning the skeletal points provided in lectures, although these are usually just guidelines for content covered in class and don’t represent the breadth of material lecturers expect students to understand. </p>
<p>Our research was conducted with three first-year cohorts of an introductory biology course at a South African university, over three academic years. The students attended a series of writing workshops that focused on the development of their reading and writing ability. The workshops were also designed to develop critical thinking skills: students learned how to identify the main line of argument, construct an effective argument and take meaningful notes relevant to what they understood from lectures.</p>
<p>The students also had weekly assignments in which they had to provide observations about experiments conducted during laboratory sessions. Here they needed to answer in short paragraphs, which honed the development of their critical thinking through writing. Each week they also had to read and answer questions based on articles. And they had to write one essay per term in which they provided an argument for their opinion on any topic in science.</p>
<p>Teaching assistants were trained to provide feedback. Students used this feedback to reconstruct and transform their class notes into something far more personalised. </p>
<p>The results were encouraging. Our findings indicate that students who personalised their class notes generally performed better on assessments. </p>
<p>The process of writing to reorganise and refine their notes proved to serve as a scaffold and enabled the development of processes associated with a deep approach to learning. Students were able to independently find gaps in their knowledge. This allowed them to develop the necessary insights to improve their level of understanding and, consequently, their <a href="http://sajs.co.za/impact-mother-tongue-construction-notes-and-first-year-academic-performance/shalini-dukhan-ann-cameron-elisabeth-brenner">academic performance</a>.</p>
<h2>Training and support</h2>
<p>We recognise that students need to take responsibility for their learning. But it’s just as important for academic staff to play an active role in incorporating skills development that helps to bridge the gap between students’ school and university experiences. </p>
<p>This could be done through academic development workshops that focus on developing critical reading, comprehension and note-making. The learning from these workshops can be deepened if lecturers embed such training in the context of their courses. </p>
<p>This training could be provided at the beginning of first year. The progress and development of students’ writing skills could then be tracked and supported through the course of the year, giving them a feedback mechanism. </p>
<p>In this way the students’ skill in writing can be used as a tool to scaffold the development of their cognition. </p>
<p>Our research shows that lecturers can play a vital role in transforming the quality of their students’ notes – and, ultimately, their academic performance.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/72208/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Shalini Dukhan receives funding from National Research Foundation and Wits University. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Ann Kathleen Cameron and Elisabeth Ann Brenner do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Learning is an independent activity at university. Students who don’t speak English as a mother tongue struggle to decode the content, let alone make sense of it.Shalini Dukhan, Lecturer of Biology/Life Sciences (research in Science Education), University of the WitwatersrandAnn Kathleen Cameron, Head: Science Teaching and Learning Centre, Faculty of Science, University of the WitwatersrandElisabeth Ann Brenner, Associate Professor in the School of Molecular and Cell Biology, University of the WitwatersrandLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/649762016-09-08T20:02:42Z2016-09-08T20:02:42ZTeaching maths – what does the evidence say actually works?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/136854/original/image-20160907-25260-1mqs01j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Teachers can help parents support their child's maths learning at home.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">from www.shutterstock.com</span></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>In our series, <a href="https://theconversation.com/au/topics/better-teachers-30749">Better Teachers</a>, we’ll explore how to improve teacher education in Australia. We’ll look at what the evidence says on a range of themes including how to raise the status of the profession and measure and improve teacher quality.</em></p>
<hr>
<p>“<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/education/2016/mar/26/reckon-you-were-born-without-a-brain-for-maths-highly-unlikely?CMP=share_btn_link">I’m just so bad at maths!</a>” Too often we hear that claim uttered in fear and frustration. </p>
<p>It’s not just students who say this, but also their parents and, in some cases, their teachers, particularly in primary schools.</p>
<p>Research on the topic of maths anxiety is inconclusive and scarce. But there are a few things we know. </p>
<p>A <a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26779093">recent study</a> found that “maths anxiety and maths performance can influence one another in a vicious cycle”. Research is unclear as to whether poor maths performance triggers maths anxiety, or whether maths anxiety reduces maths performance. It seems likely to be a combination of both negatively reinforcing each other.</p>
<p>Psychologists have found there can be a very real physical response to maths in both adults and children. This includes the <a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21707166">release of stress hormones like cortisol</a>, which are characteristic of the fight or flight response. </p>
<p>One <a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3485285/">study even found that anticipating</a> a maths test activates the brain’s <a href="http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20150619-do-you-have-maths-anxiety">“pain matrix</a>” – the regions that might light up if you had injured yourself.</p>
<p>It is an affliction that appears to affect females more than males. Cultural expectations may be to blame – <a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23985576">girls are more likely to catch maths anxiety</a> (particularly from female teachers), perhaps because of <a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23087633">stereotypes that girls are “not very good” at maths</a>.</p>
<h2>What works in maths teaching?</h2>
<p>When maths teachers see students struggling, they often give more of the same work, rather than going back and plugging the hole or gap in understanding. </p>
<p>No matter what age the student, before moving on, the teacher should always go back to the preceding skill, or take the concept back to the hands-on concrete phase, until the student has confidently mastered that skill or concept.</p>
<p><strong>Learning the language of maths</strong></p>
<p>It is important to teach children that maths is a language of its own. If students can’t speak the language of maths fluently, they don’t really understand the fundamental concepts. </p>
<p>Sentence frames, co-operative learning tasks and frequent problem-solving linked to real-world examples ensure students <a href="https://%20www.ascd.org/publications/books/.../Mathematics-as-Language.aspx">“talk” maths fluently</a> and accurately to gain mastery over the language of maths. </p>
<p>Using a sentence frame such as “A ______ has four sides and four corners” or “one metre is equal to ___ centimetres” during warm-ups or plenary sessions allows students to develop fluency in maths vocabulary and a deeper understanding of the targeted mathematical concepts.</p>
<p><strong>More emphasis on formative assessment</strong></p>
<p>To reduce maths test anxiety, teachers should put more emphasis on <a href="http://edglossary.org/formative-assessment/">formative assessment</a> – on-the-spot monitoring and feedback – rather than relying mainly on summative assessment where a student is assessed at the end of a period of learning. </p>
<p>Giving specific, purposeful and timely feedback to maximise learning opportunities is more effective than missing key learning opportunities waiting for children to fail an end-of-unit assignment.</p>
<p><strong>Mastering maths concepts</strong></p>
<p>Being able to give students many opportunities to <a href="https://research.acer.edu.au/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1022&context=aer">practise and master</a> the concrete, pictorial and abstract phases of development for each maths concept is essential for them to learn successfully. </p>
<p><strong>Understand which level each student is at</strong></p>
<p><a href="http://www.apa.org/monitor/2010/07-08/gender-gap.aspx">Some research</a> suggests that girls rely more on manipulatives – using concrete materials to support their problem-solving – and that boys move on more quickly to mental cognitive strategies, such as mental strategies like doubles or bridge to ten. </p>
<p>Regular, informative assessment ensures the teacher has evidence of what each student knows and what they need to learn next when they are <a href="http://grattan.edu.au/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/827-Targeted-Teaching.pdf">ready to move on</a>.</p>
<p><strong>Adapt teaching and resources</strong></p>
<p>Effective maths teachers are able to <a href="http://www.edu.gov.on.ca/eng/literacynumeracy/inspire/research/different_math.pdf">differentiate their teaching practices</a>, curriculum and resources to ensure all students are accessing the maths curriculum, feeling sufficiently challenged, but not overly anxious, and working to grow their potential in learning maths.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/137022/original/image-20160908-25253-1fzs6l0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/137022/original/image-20160908-25253-1fzs6l0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/137022/original/image-20160908-25253-1fzs6l0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/137022/original/image-20160908-25253-1fzs6l0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/137022/original/image-20160908-25253-1fzs6l0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/137022/original/image-20160908-25253-1fzs6l0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/137022/original/image-20160908-25253-1fzs6l0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Some states are moving towards appointing specialist maths teachers in primary schools.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">from www.shutterstock.com</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Do we need specialist maths teachers in primary school?</h2>
<p>In some states, such as <a href="https://www.teach.nsw.edu.au/exploreteaching/types-of-teachers/specialist-teachers">New South Wales</a>, there is a move to appoint specialist maths teachers in primary schools. </p>
<p>On the surface, this appears to be a tempting solution to raising student performance in maths, but what is the price to be paid? </p>
<p>The primary school system of the generalist classroom teacher intentionally differs from secondary schooling in order to meet the social and emotional needs of young children, as well as their academic needs. </p>
<p>Generalist teachers take responsibility for developing the whole child. A focus on coaching and feedback for primary teachers to improve their mathematics instruction would ensure the learning of maths remains the responsibility of everyone in a school. It would also combat the myth that some people simply can’t do maths. </p>
<p>The federal government has committed A$54 million over four years to the <a href="http://archive.industry.gov.au/ministerarchive2013/chrisevans/mediareleases/pages/investinginscienceandmathsforasmarterfuture.aspx.htm">Investing in Science and Maths for a Smarter Future</a> initiative. In 2012, the Office for Learning and Teaching funded five research projects on the teaching of maths and science. These projects were funded in response to recommendations from Ian Chubb, then Australia’s chief scientist, in his <a href="http://www.chiefscientist.gov.au/wp-content/uploads/Office-of-the-Chief-Scientist-MES-Report-8-May-2012.pdf">2012 report</a> Mathematics, Engineering and Science: in the national interest.</p>
<p><a href="http://remstep.org.au/about-the-project/">One of these projects</a> focuses on the training of specialist maths and science teachers in primary and secondary schools. Findings from these projects are due to be delivered in 2017.</p>
<h2>Confident maths teachers, confident maths students</h2>
<p>Not all students will enjoy learning maths. But this is more likely to happen if maths is well taught from early childhood. And the key to confident maths students is confident teachers.</p>
<p>An instructional practices survey at a <a href="http://www.det.wa.edu.au/schoolsonline/ind_rvw_rpt.do?schoolID=5824&pageID=AD28">primary school in Western Australia</a> found that 40% of teachers believed their confidence in teaching maths would benefit from explicit coaching and feedback. </p>
<p>In response to this, the school maths leadership team designed a series of professional learning sessions to build staff confidence; created mentors for other staff members to help reduce their levels of anxiety about teaching maths; and ran workshops for parents every few weeks to inform them of the latest research in maths, the common areas that children are having difficulty with, and provide practical ways that parents can support their children’s maths learning at home. </p>
<p>By informing parents about key maths skills children are learning at school, teachers showed parents how everyday home activities, such as cooking and shopping, can help reinforce mathematical thinking. </p>
<p>Parents were made aware of the subliminal messages they might send to their children when they say things like, “It’s ok you’re no good at maths, because I wasn’t either.” Parents were then given alternative language to use with their children when they talked about maths.</p>
<p>As a result, teachers and parents at the school have gained confidence in their ability to teach maths and this is reflected in the students’ learning and attitude to maths. </p>
<p>The school is analysing a range of data to see how improving students’ confidence in learning maths can translate to improvements in maths performance. </p>
<p><a href="https://grattan.edu.au/report/targeted-teaching-how-better-use-of-data-can-improve-student-learning/">Research from the Grattan Institute</a> reinforces the point that teachers and schools need to collect and use evidence of students’ learning achievements and progress over time to know what works to improve student learning and to change what doesn’t. </p>
<h2>Top tips for improving teaching in maths</h2>
<p>To improve maths teaching, teachers should do the following:</p>
<ul>
<li><p>If they suffer from maths anxiety, don’t suffer alone. Identify the sources of anxiety and seek help from mentors and coaches to improve knowledge of maths concepts. Then use this expertise to build a broader repertoire of effective maths teaching strategies.</p></li>
<li><p>Demonstrate a <a href="https://www.ted.com/talks/carol_dweck_the_power_of_believing_that_you_can_improve?language=en">growth mindset</a> to students in their attitude towards teaching and learning maths.</p></li>
<li><p>Over time, regularly collect and <a href="https://grattan.edu.au/report/targeted-teaching-how-better-use-of-data-can-improve-student-learning/">analyse a range of evidence</a> for each student’s individual achievement and progress to understand what each student knows and what they are ready to learn next.</p></li>
<li><p>Join a <a href="http://www.aamt.edu.au/">professional maths teaching association</a> and/or professional learning community to engage in regular discussion with other teachers about what teaching strategies are working for particular students and what are not.</p></li>
</ul>
<p><em>• This piece was co-authored by Jacki McMahon, teacher at Makybe Rise Primary School and recent winner of a national ChooseMaths 16 teaching award, and Steph McDonald, principal of Makybe Rise Primary School in Western Australia.</em></p>
<p><em>• <a href="https://theconversation.com/au/topics/better-teachers-30749">Read more</a> articles in the series</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/64976/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Claire Brown received funding from the Higher Education, Participation and Partnerships Program (HEPPP) to implement and research the Advancement via Individual Determination (AVID) program in Australia. That funding has now ended.</span></em></p>Here are some strategies that can help boost both teachers’ and their students’ confidence in maths.Dr Claire Brown, Associate Director, The Victoria Institute; National Director, AVID Australia, Victoria UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/580522016-06-12T19:39:16Z2016-06-12T19:39:16ZGenes can have up to 80% influence on students’ academic performance<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/125658/original/image-20160608-3497-1b1wmin.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Genes do have an influence over school performance. But they are never the full story. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">from www.shutterstock.com</span></span></figcaption></figure><p><a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/10888438.2013.800521">Research shows</a> that a student’s genetic makeup can have a strong influence on their academic performance. </p>
<p>Some interpret this as meaning there is little that can be done to help those who struggle academically – and that spending extra money on these students to help them succeed <a href="http://www.theaustralian.com.au/opinion/cash-cant-beat-genetics-in-class/news-story/6d62e16e5061602a25f6398f52eb94d6">is pointless</a>.</p>
<p>But is this the case? </p>
<p>A major misconception is that genes are destiny. This is wrong because genes are never the full story. </p>
<p>This is because environmental factors (“nurture”) also play a role in levels of academic achievement. Well-designed and well-delivered remediation can also help struggling students even in cases where genetic factors (“nature”) may be the source of the difficulties.</p>
<h2>What we know about genetic influence</h2>
<p>We know about strong genetic influences on academic skills primarily through the use of the <a href="http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs10519-013-9598-6">twin method</a>.</p>
<p>This is where the genetic makeup of identical twins is compared with non-identical twins. </p>
<p>Evidence of genetic influence emerges if identical twins are more alike in terms of academic performance than non-identical (“fraternal”) twins. </p>
<p>Identical twins share all their genes, “fraternal” twins share half of their genes, but both types share homes and schools. </p>
<p>So <a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16173891">researchers can estimate</a> the degree to which genes affect academic achievement over and above the effects of homes and schools: that is, they can estimate how much ability is inherited. And because non-identical twins can be opposite-sex, researchers can also identify if nature and nurture play out differently with males and females. </p>
<p>For the most part the same genes appear to affect boys and girls, and in general gender effects are in danger of being exaggerated in public discourse.</p>
<p>Studies with twin children have been conducted worldwide, including in <a href="http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11145-006-9019-9">Australia, the US</a>, the <a href="https://kclpure.kcl.ac.uk/portal/files/35193441/Shakeshaft_Trzaskowski_McMillan_et_al_2013_PLoS_ONE.pdf">UK</a>, <a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22700061">continental Europe</a>, <a href="http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0016640">Asia</a>, and <a href="http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11145-006-9017-y">Africa</a>, with an emphasis on the core areas of literacy and numeracy. </p>
<p><a href="http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/10888438.2013.800521">Estimates of genetic influence</a> vary somewhat among subjects and locations, but range from near 50% to as high as 80%. The studies have used standardised tests as well as <a href="https://kclpure.kcl.ac.uk/portal/files/35193441/Shakeshaft_Trzaskowski_McMillan_et_al_2013_PLoS_ONE.pdf">school-administered tests</a>.</p>
<p>Less is known about creative and technical subjects, where particular talents clearly exist.</p>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/125660/original/image-20160608-3492-1bw6ds0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/125660/original/image-20160608-3492-1bw6ds0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=414&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/125660/original/image-20160608-3492-1bw6ds0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=414&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/125660/original/image-20160608-3492-1bw6ds0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=414&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/125660/original/image-20160608-3492-1bw6ds0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=520&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/125660/original/image-20160608-3492-1bw6ds0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=520&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/125660/original/image-20160608-3492-1bw6ds0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=520&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Identical twins are more alike in terms of academic performance than non-identical twins.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">from www.shutterstock.com</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>What about environmental influence?</h2>
<p>Twin studies can also parse environmental influence into factors that twin children mostly share, such as home socio-economic status (SES) and school attended. There are also those that are unique to each child in a twin, such as illnesses and, often enough, separate teachers. </p>
<p>Contrary to many people’s expectations, some shared factors such as family SES and school attended are relatively <a href="http://slatestarcodex.com/2016/03/16/non-shared-environment-doesnt-just-mean-schools-and-peers/">minor influences</a> on student differences once genetic endowment has been taken into consideration. </p>
<p>It is important to note, however, that some groups may show lower average levels of achievement due to adverse environmental circumstances such as <a href="http://www.aihw.gov.au/closingthegap/documents/issues_papers/ctg-ip01.pdf">poorer rates of school attendance and retention</a>. </p>
<p>Other groups may be affected by unusual environments, such as <a href="http://europepmc.org/abstract/med/26448503">heavy metal contamination</a> from mining and metals processing, which can be associated with lower NAPLAN scores. </p>
<h2>Educational interventions</h2>
<p>What works are well-designed, well-delivered and timely interventions that can help struggling children to reach or more closely approach normal-range levels. </p>
<p>These interventions are usually designed for <a href="http://psycnet.apa.org/journals/edu/106/1/46/">individuals or small groups</a> but have proven successful when implemented at <a href="http://aer.sagepub.com/content/43/1/137.2.abstract">school district level</a>. </p>
<p>We do not claim that compensating for genetic disadvantage is easy, but with the right <a href="http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-secret-to-raising-smart-kids1/">frame of mind</a> and sustained help with an emphasis on <a href="http://trove.nla.gov.au/work/8407677?">how the alphabet represents the sounds of speech</a>, plus supported reading practice, progress is real and rewarding. </p>
<h2>Funding implications</h2>
<p>This is why the conclusion that strong genetic influence makes additional spending pointless is too pessimistic. </p>
<p>It could be argued that if some children struggling with literacy or numeracy are doing so because of constraints on learning with biological origins, then extra funding delivered to these children is exactly what is needed. </p>
<p>This is especially so if we wish to counter increasing <a href="https://grattan.edu.au/report/widening-gaps/">gaps</a> between the best - and worst -performing students. </p>
<h2>Implications for the teaching profession</h2>
<p><a href="http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1751-228X.2007.00001.x/abstract">Some teachers</a> have been reluctant to acknowledge the role of genes in school performance, perhaps because of an aversion to biological explanations - so-called <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Blank_Slate">“biological determinism”</a> - and perhaps because of the false impression that if genes matter, teachers don’t. </p>
<p>Among other consequences, this has meant an overemphasis on the role of teacher skill and dedication in determining why some students prosper and others struggle. </p>
<p>There is <a href="https://theconversation.com/genes-arent-destiny-but-teaching-isnt-everything-either-10561">direct evidence from twins</a> that teacher differences are not responsible for much in the way of student differences in literacy. So teachers do matter in that they are the reasons why children know more at the end of the year or even the day. But our teachers are more uniformly effective than many give them credit for.</p>
<h2>The Colorado story</h2>
<p>It is unfortunate that in some education systems, such as in <a href="https://www.cde.state.co.us/educatoreffectiveness/overviewofsb191">Colorado</a> in the US, teacher employment and remuneration are tied to evaluations that give undue weight to student progress. </p>
<p>This ignores the fact that some students struggle because of biological constraints on learning that can be overcome to an encouraging degree, but only with special and adequate resources. </p>
<p>In the US, teacher morale is at an <a href="http://www.rawstory.com/2015/04/crisis-in-american-education-as-teacher-morale-hits-an-all-time-low/">all time low</a>, and in other places, including <a href="http://psycnet.apa.org/journals/edu/102/1/32/">Australia</a>, teachers are blamed by many in the media and politics.</p>
<h2>What is needed</h2>
<p>We need a more nuanced understanding of the factors that influence academic achievement, including the role that genes play.</p>
<p>At the same time, we need to avoid the unwarranted pessimism that can accompany acknowledgement of genetic influence, a danger that applies not only to attitudes toward academic development but to <a href="http://cdp.sagepub.com/content/24/5/399.abstract">mental and physical health</a> as well. </p>
<p>We need to take comfort from the existence of scientifically-grounded interventions, which in the hands of teachers with sufficient resources, can make a difference to the prospects of students who initially find the going in particular subjects tough.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/58052/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Brian Byrne receives funding from the Australian Research Council and the National Health and Medical Research Council.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Richard Olson receives funding from the National Institutes of Health, U.S.A. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Katrina Grasby does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Some students struggle because of biological constraints on learning. This can be overcome to an encouraging degree, but only with special and adequate resources.Brian Byrne, Chief Investigator, ARC Centre of Excellence in Cognition and its Disorders, Chief Investigator, NHMRC Centre of Research Excellence in Twin Research, and Emeritus Professor, School of Behavioural, Cognitive and Social Sciences, University of New EnglandKatrina Grasby, PhD, University of New EnglandRichard Olson, Professor of psychology and neuroscience director, Colorado Learning Disabilities Research Centre, University of Colorado BoulderLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.