Study & Education

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Support for the use of song in learning a foreign language
  • Children taught foreign language vocabulary in the form of a song learned to pronounce the words better than those who learned the words using an oral poem.
  • Recall was also significantly better, and particularly so after six months.

A small study that compared teaching Spanish-speaking children English vocabulary using a song or a spoken poem has found definite and long-term advantages to the song form.
Short online ‘pep talks’ can boost students

A large study shows how a 45-minute online intervention can improve struggling high school students' attitude to schoolwork, and thus their academic performance.

There's been a lot of talk in recent years about the importance of mindset in learning, with those who have a “growth mindset” (ie believe that intelligence can be developed) being more academically successful than those who believe that intelligence is a fixed attribute.
Media multitasking and academic achievement

Three recent studies point to the impact of social media and multiple device use on learning and cognitive control.
The role of motivation on academic performance

A study shows how easily you can affect motivation, producing a significant effect on college test scores, while a large German study finds that motivational and strategy factors, but not intelligence, affects growth in math achievement at high school.

I’ve spoken before about the effects of motivation on test performance.
Effects of diagram orientation on comprehension

The most popular format of the most common type of diagram in biology textbooks is more difficult to understand than formats that use different orientations.

A study into how well students understand specific diagrams reminds us that, while pictures may be worth 1000 words, even small details can make a significant difference to how informative they are.
Review makes clear no gender differences in math ability

Analysis of hundreds of studies has found no difference between male and female in terms of their math skills.

A meta-analysis of 242 articles assessing the math skills of 1,286,350 people found no difference between the two sexes.

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