A comparative study of Polish and Israeli teachers’ attitudes toward neuromyths in education

Recently, there has been an intense increase in interest in brain research findings among education professionals. In response to the needs of teachers, a number of proposals have appeared on the market, which are in fact so-called neuromyths, i.e. theories or methods, with an unclear theoretical basis and unproven effectiveness. Despite this, they are widely used in many countries. The purpose of the article is to check whether the obtained results will be related to the specific socio-economic situation of a given country. The study included 171 teachers from Poland and Israel. Participants were asked to fill out a questionnaire that had already been used for this purpose in other countries. The results indicate that the factor significantly differentiating the studied groups, was the place of residence. Polish teachers scored better on questions about facts of brain structure, but were more likely to believe false claims involving eating sweet things, brain neuroplasticity or the need to drink water. Israeli teachers, on the other hand, were more likely to accept as true false claims related to bilingualism, to simultaneous stimulating both the left and right hemisphere, to giving children a lot of educational toys, doing multitasking and using media. This may be a result of socioeconomic and cultural differences, concerning, among other things, the use of scientific publications, media or university subjects.

REFERENCES:

• Bensley, D.A., Lilienfeld, S.O. and Powell, L.A. 2014. A new measure of psychological misconceptions: relations with academic background, critical thinking, and acceptance of paranormal and pseudoscientific claims. Learning and Individual Differences. 36, pp. 9–18.
• Bensley, D.A. and Lilienfeld, S.O. 2017. Psychological misconceptions: recent scientific advances and unresolved issues. Current Directions and Psychological Science. 26, pp. 377–382.
• Bowers, J.S. 2016. The practical and principled problems with educational neuroscience. Psychological Reviews. 123, pp. 600–612.
• Crockard, A. 1996. Confessions of a brain surgeon. New Scientist. 2061, p. 68.
• Davies, P. 1999. What is evidence-based education? British Journal of Educational Studies. 47, pp. 108–121.
• Dekker, S., Lee, N.C., Howard-Jones, P. and Jolles, J. 2012. Neuromyths in education: Prevalence and predictors of misconceptions among teachers. Frontiers in Psychology. 3, 429.
• Devonshire, I. M..,Dommett, E.J. 2010. Neuroscience: viable applications in education? The Neuroscientist. 16 (4), pp. 349–356.
• Ferrero, M., Garaizar, P. and Vadillo M.A. 2016. Neuromyths in Education: Prevalence among Spanish Teachers and an Exploration of Cross-Cultural Variation. Frontiers in Humane Neuroscience. 10, pp. 1–11.
• Howard-Jones, P. 2014. Neuro, science, and education: myths and messages. Nature Revievs Neuroscience. 15, pp. 817–824.
• Khramova, M.V., Bukina, T.V., Smirnov, N.M. et al. 2023. Prevalence of neuromyths among students and pre-service teachers. Humanities and Social Sciences Communications. 10, pp. 1–14.
• Kowalski, P. and Taylor, A.K. 2017. Reducing students’ misconceptions with refutational teaching: for long-term retention, comprehension matters. Scholarsh. Teaching and Learning Psychology. 3, pp. 90–100.
• Organization for Economic Co-operation, and Development [OECD]. 2002. Understanding the Brain: Towards a New Learning Science. Paris: Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development.
• Pasquinelli, E. 2013. Slippery slopes. Some considerations for favoring a good marriage between education and the science of the mind–brain–behavior and forestalling the risks. Trends in Neuroscience and Education. 2 (3), pp. 111–121.
• Roskies, A.L. 2008. Neuroimaging and inferential distance. Neuroethics. 1, pp. 19–30.
• Rousseau, L. 2021. Interventions to Dispel Neuromyths in Educational Settings. A Review. Frontiers in Psychology. 12, pp. 1–12.
• Wiseman, A.W. 2010. The uses of evidence for educational policymaking: global contexts and international trends. Review of Research in Education. 34, pp. 1–24.
• Torrijos-Muelas, M., González-Víllora,S. and Bodoque-Osma, A.R. 2020. The Persistence of Neuromyths in the Educational Settings: A Systematic. Journal Frontiers in Psychology. 11, pp. 1664–1078.
• Tovazzi, A., Giovannini, S. and Basso, D. 2020. A new method for evaluating knowledge, beliefs, and neuromyths about the mind and brain among Italian teachers. Mind Brain and Education. 14, pp. 187–198.