The Explanatory Power of Neuroscience

Advances in neuroscience will irrevocably change (beyond recognition) any familiar folk psychological concepts we hold dear about learning. In addition, it will profoundly change our epistemological methodologies insofar as it will reveal what it truly means for brains to learn. Our stubbornness in the face of adversity is no match for the progress of scientific discovery: our disposition (intuitive) to understand conscious phenomena as irreducible to neuroscience is not only illusory but can be explained (or will undoubtedly be explained) by biological dispositions we have inherited from natural selection. Folk psychology cannot claim a sound epistemological framework other than phenomenological - we cannot claim truth from these characterizations of the mind that are (mis)guided by biology and reducible to the same laws that govern everything in this universe. Science holds the trump card. Folk Psychology has been necessary to pave the way to successful theories, but it can in no way give any credible insight into the phenomena it seeks to understand.

Homo Educationist: Insights from Behavioural Economics

It seems contrary to common sense, but advances in Economics Theory have implications that need to be understood in the context of Education. Surely not… right?

In order to learn, students make choices about those things that provide optimal outcomes for their development. In economics, consumers make purchases that provide optimal outcomes for their lives. When making choices about strategies for learning, students will choose strategies that are optimal for understanding. When consumers decide to purchase items they make choices based on cost-benefit analyses that subjugate uncertainties. In an ideal world, rationality and reason influence decision making processes. Choices, whether consumers or learners, would not be influenced by external indicators that could have implications for the choices being made as decisions would be made on simple costs and benefits that are ultimately informed by individual preferences or prior knowledge.

The world, however, does not conform to our intuitions – and the above, however intuitive, is misconceived. Rationality and reason in decision making, whether economic or educational, is not elusive but rather illusory – and necessarily so. The central pillar of enlightenment thinking has been called into question by evidence based on the contrary. The challenge, coming from Behavioural Economics, suggests that human decision making is strongly determined by contextual factors. For example, the presentation of information can lead to divergent choices about the same idea based on how it is presented to us. Behaviour ought to be understood as subject to cognitive biases, emotional response and social pressure. Economic decision making has been shown to be immeasurably less deliberate, linear and controlled than it appears to us. Education is slowly catching on.

So what – making consumer choices is incommensurable with learning processes and any indication of analogy surely invites hostility? In one sense I agree – we are built to discriminate on the basis of qualitative differences. Fundamentally, however, there is no difference at all: the condition for the possibility of both educative and economic decision making processes can be reduced to physical processes that occur in the brain; we are effectively dealing with the same biological processes. Does this make is analogous? Yes, despite the different objectives that are manifestly obvious. If we agree (even if we have to suspend our belief for a moment), then we can ask the question: can anything be extrapolated from Behavioural Economics research that is applicable in Educational research?

Before we look further into this there is, perhaps, a more pertinent analogy to be made between this Economic theory and Educational theory: Behavioural Economics has instigated an analogous paradigmatic shift in economic theory in the same manner as advances in evidence-based theory have necessitated a paradigmatic shift in education. The shift, as outlined in my prior blogs, can be summarised as a transformation in the way we value evidence over intuition and utilise evidence to advance knowledge and enhance decision making.

Behavioural Economics too is consistent with naturalism insofar is concepts prevalent in the discourse can be reduced to scientifically understood principles – homo economicus has been reduced from rational to predictably irrational on the basis of insurmountable evidence. Once again, homo economicus guided by reason and rationality has proved himself more than elusive, but illusory, and necessarily so. This illusion too can be understood on the basis of our folk psychological and intuitive default positions – as such they can undergo the same reduction and, if need be, elimination as invalid concepts (rationality has been surely eliminated in Behavioural Economics). But enough on this point.

The overlap between Behavioural Economics and educational theory does not end purely on the basis of analogy. Behavioural Economics shares something more fundamental with Hattie’s educational and paradigm shifting revolution: Dual Systems Theory. The idea that consciousness is the ‘tip’ of the iceberg has long been established – rather interestingly, widely held to be intuitive on the basis of deductive reasoning. Once again, our folk psychology has played an important role in the establishment of this understanding: whatever epoch you research, a dualistic model has been present in some manner. Of course, the ‘mind’ has proved more than elusive, and rather illusory. Reductionism has, however, eliminated the folk psychological concepts surrounding this illusion and replaced it with the Dual Systems Model – a model taken very seriously by Hattie and Yates in Visible Learning and the Science of How We Learn (2014) as well as in Behavioural Economics. This should not be surprising, despite the overt qualitative differences between economics and education, as both can be reduced to biological principles and Neuroscientific research. As both are epistemically concerned with truth and their evidence reflects objective facts about the world then we would expect there ought to be a cohesive association between the two areas of research. I implore you to go and research this model as it gives credence and enhances our understanding of learners and learning exponentially.

So what are the implications for teaching and learning? For Theories of Learning, we can use Behavioural Economics as an exemplar in the utilisation of naturalism as beneficial for enhancing an understanding of the underlying principles involved in decision making – in our case, educational not economic. For Theories of Teaching, there is an exemplary application of these understandings to enhance economic outcomes, or in our case, educational outcomes. These outcomes, however, come at a contentious and foreseeable cost: they are deceptive insofar as they utilise these understandings to enhance economic outcomes. The great moral question for education, however, would be whether we should use the same deception to enhance learning outcomes. Theories of Teaching, built on these principles, would look vastly different from the way in which we design Theories of Teaching now as we currently aim to provide a transparent and harmonious association between Theories of Learning and Theories of Teaching. Behavioural Economics does not disseminate its theories in manifestly transparent ways in which allow the individual to transcend their impulses – it exploits the consumer on the basis of deception in order to enhance capital gain. I am not sure what is to be taken away from this… perhaps I will return to this at some time in the future.

As noted in the beginning, the major findings of Behavioural Economics was that by changing the way one product is marketed that opposing choices can be made about it – why not for ideas, concepts and knowledge too? Surely this gives us a hint of how to establish an accurate and sound translation of theory into practice. Irrespective of its deception, Theories of Teaching must present in ways that correlate with higher probabilities in positive outcomes. Learning is measured in progress in much the same way that economics is. Lastly, learning as based on ‘decision making’ surely ought to be influenced by the same cognitive biases, emotional response and social pressures that give rise to economic ‘choices’. It’s time we do away with our intuitive understandings of learning and pave the way forward in educational research that takes the science seriously. Behavioural Economics leads the way in paradigm shifts that utilise evidence over intuition – education is still coming to grips with it. Which way will it go?

What Constitutes as ‘Evidence’ in Evidence-Based Educational Practice?

In light of Hattie’s paradigm shift, ‘evidence-based research’ has gained a lot of traction in educational discourse and research. Visible Learning is an exemplary indication of the power of evidence-based research. Like any theoretical justification in educational research, ‘evidence-based research’ has become the modern standard from which to justify decisions and actions made in all facets of the educative process. It stems from the paradigmatic shift towards a ‘professionalization of the workforce’ and the attitude that anecdote is not enough to justify educational decisions from the classroom right through to educational policy. Like all trends in education, this has kick-started a global movement with a multiplicity of ‘research’ and interest groups invested in translating and marketing their products under the banner of evidence: Evidence-based practice has become commercialised. Quite disconcerting is the fact that educators seem to accept that good educational products need only be considered evidence-based, irrespective of whether the ‘evidence-based practice’ provides any evidence at all that it is conducive to meeting its claims or providing any substantial evidence.

We have to proceed with caution and must remain vigilant with our scepticism for a very good reason: what constitutes as evidence really boils down to whom and what we consider to be an expert. In the world of amateur-experts, myself considered, where opinion is marketed freely on the web with little to no credentials in being able to discern fact from fiction, how are we to really come to grips with the scientific truths inherent to the educative process? What is true, above and beyond all contextual features that influence the educative process, is that all learners are biologically the same and even the manifestly differing phenomena they present with can be reduced to the same principles and drives. And this is important – we intuitively work within a world of difference and are so focussed on producing individualistic ideologies that we remain blind to the processes that unite each and every one of us. For what is true must be true for all time and for all learners. Of course, this runs against out intuition for we see a world of differences – the narrative of education is fuelled by this principle.

The role of scientific research for education is conflictual as it contradicts many long standing ideals and frameworks of understanding in education and educational research. Not only does ‘evidence’ often contradict our intuitive understandings, but the systemic methodology of scientific research does not bide well when it comes to finding resolutions between the truth and economic, political, or any other interest groups who are heavily invested in education. It lucks out, at the outset, by its intrinsic counter-intuitive nature – and truths need to be marketed to interest groups in ways that make the counter-intuitive sensible and comprehensible. This process, often referred to as translation, more often than not violates the original research. Thus we have a process from which ‘evidence-based practice’ becomes counter-factual, intuitively appealing, and profit making. Just look at the predominance of ‘brain training’ that is marketed on an industry of neuromyths – all justified as ‘evidence-based’.

In addition, proper evidence-based research (that is scientifically validated research) that is epistemically interested in truth is often ignored, defamed or trivialised by those whose ideological agendas are threatened. Even at the teacher level scientific research is not taken very seriously. Most teachers remain ignorant to the truths by which educational research is based on – most are readily to accept the ‘evidence’ from evidence-based practice as a justification of educational decisions. Very few are given the tools to both take scientific research seriously and discern fact from fiction. In another blog I hinted at the exploitation rife in the industry and a framework that all teachers should use as a means of utilising scepticism in order to better understand claims of evidence. Perhaps this could be something I could improve on if the interest if there.

One thing going against the scientific research is the ensuing and often acrimonious debates about conflicts in scientific educational research. Scientific research is not exempt from the ideological forces (as noted above) that impede on claims of truth, and is openly exploited for production and marketing purposes. Importantly, however, this amounts to little when all things considered. Despite what I have presented, resolution is not decided by those who are concerned with the evidence. Experts are often concerned with meeting the ideological demands of their industry – we trust these experts to rely on evidence, yet they often fail to. What it comes down to is not scientific resolution, but simply people making decisions about what they value. And what we value most is what is most intuitively appealing. The paradigm shift that is gaining traction in academic circles is taken very seriously, but it has a long way to go in the educational sector that is interested in what sounds good and not necessarily what is true.

Jesse Stephens

Naturalising Education Part 1: Conceptual Foundations for an Evolutionary Educational Psychology Review

Science provides the only methodology in which to acquire knowledge. Ironically, the justification for this lies in the fallibility made evident through attempts at falsification and refutation. Every claim in science is reviewed, corrected, refined, improved; more often than not refuted. Those that survive the error-reducing process of refutation are often further refined and reduced into more fundamental processes. Theories are grounded when reduction has occurred – grounded in physics. Physics fixes all the facts. If we are to take naturalism seriously this is a non-negotiable. In humans the laws of physics govern the atomic scale processes which, in turn, govern the chemical processes and interactions that then govern the biological processes we see at our scale. In addition, the biological processes give rise to our folk psychological intuitions and phenomenological experience from which we understand and make sense of the world from. For a beautiful account of how quantum mechanics provides the necessary conditions for life see Schrodinger, What is Life? For a more recent account of how quantum mechanics influences everything in biology see Johnjoe McFadden & Jim Al-Khalili, Life on the Edge: The Coming Age of Quantum Biology.

Scientific inquiry has revealed to us some of the most counter-intuitive and intricate and complex features of the universe we inhabit and everything within it. This might seem a world away from education, but it’s not: learning is a feature of this universe and is not exempt from the same laws that govern everything else. That is to say, the subatomic world of quantum mechanics gave rise the biological creatures as complex as us, and dictated the evolution in which the survival of the species necessarily depended on the ability to learn. Education might be a new concept (in evolutionary time scales), but learning is primordial and was the condition for the possibility of our survival and evolution. Long before we debated the best teaching strategies we were successfully teaching – it is inseparable from the human condition. Surely with our comprehensive but not yet complete understanding of reality we should have made sense of ‘learning’ and what it’s all about? After all, physicists are working with numbers so incomprehensibly large that it must be far more complex than the educative process? There are, it is estimated, 10 to the 80 (that is 10 followed by 80 zero’s) atoms in the observable universe.

The brain is incredibly complex. It is estimated that each adult brain contains only 100 billion neurons, a number far smaller than the above. But each of those 100 billion neurons makes between 1000 to 10,000 contacts between other neurons. Based on this, in each adult brain the number of permutations and interactions between neurons far exceed the number of elementary particles in the universe – about 10 to the 100. As J.B.S Haldane stated, ‘… the universe is not only queerer than we suppose, but it is queerer than we can suppose’. Incredibly, our folk intuitions have been ‘supposing’ without access to the complexities that lay beneath conscious experience. In keeping with Haldane’s comments, our biology in no way is capable of supposing such complexities – we need tools such as mathematics and language through analogy and story to conceptualise what is literally impossible to imagine.

Some of the most fundamental things our intuition and conscious experience teach us about learning turn out to be completely illusory. All of these illusions, as products of a universe fixed by the laws of physics, are useful for survival and have been selected for by environmental filters that we have inherited from our ancestors. You can see, on the outset, how many people who promote the science of learning do so in a manner in which would not readily accept these claims: they contradict many long held beliefs about the nature of learning and purposes of education. But if we are to take naturalism seriously, and make the paradigm shift in education, we must be also willing to accept conclusions that go against the prevailing wisdom (if indeed the prevailing wisdom needs reduction/refutation) in order to establish a full understanding of how learning takes place, and how best to teach as a result.

One of the best accounts of naturalism and education is by Geary, D. 2007, Educating the Evolved Mind. There is a wealth of insight and far too much to share, but there are some important points I wish to utilise as it signifies the manner in which learning can be understood by being reduced (and I mean theoretically reduced) to biological principles and processes. This process is the application of evolutionary theory to the understanding of the brain and its development in the educative process. In Part 2 I will address the primary and secondary forms of cognition and consider the implications for theories of learning and teaching. In Part 3 I will readdress Willingham’s thesis that students don’t like to think and that the majority of learning is not ‘thinking’ but ‘memory recall’. In doing so I hope to deliver an understanding of learning that is outside of ideological influence (true irrespective of current trends) and consider the potential implications for teaching and learning.

Jesse Stephens

A Proper Distinction: Science opposed to Folk Psychology OR Education opposed to Edu-Nonsense

Teaching is applied brain science. We are confronted with two options: apply our intuitive understandings of learning in the classroom OR apply the scientific understanding in the classroom. Of the former there is a wealth of ‘research’. These range from an insurmountable range of products (such as books, Professional Development, university degrees) that fit nicely with our intuitive understanding of learning. The default position of most educators is to work from within this position. Of the latter there is new and exciting research still in its infancy – but there is also a lot of nonsense as a result.

At no point in pre-service teaching were we trained to question theories of teaching and learning. We have not been equipped with the skills necessary to even conceptualise a distinction between what the scientifically validated theories of learning elucidate and the edu-nonsensical ‘validate’. Most educators are probably not even interested in making a distinction – we are time poor, very few of us desire to do research and we trust the ‘experts’ to get it right. To make matters harder, we are often tricked into a false conflation that markets theories of teaching as logically developed and empirically conflated on theories of learning. This ‘based’ on is too often exploited – it’s time we end the conflation of theories of teaching based on theories of learning. If we are to take seriously the idea that theories of teaching must be based on how learners learn, we ought to begin with the science of learning and build our way up.

To begin with, we must interrogate our concepts of teaching and learning. Our ideas about learning are products of brain processes that lead us to oversimplify and or remain naïve – once again, the student feels frustrated, he/she does not feel nor have access to cells firing in their left ventro-medial amygdala. If you disagree with this point, just think that if we did have access to these phenomena there would be no need for research and these ideas would not be unintuitive to us. From this perspective we have to throw our whole understanding of learning into question in order to better equip us with understanding the fundamental nature of what is really going on.

Ask yourself – what are three words that describe each picture below?

 

 

 

 

 

 

The first picture might conjure up such notions of curiosity, excitement, happiness, learning, exploring etc. The second may conjure up ‘neural firing’ or ‘brain activity’ or ‘building neural pathways’. Despite an obvious distinction between concepts, we are effectively looking at the same picture. Folk psychology manifests as a distinctly overt biological drive to attribute thoughts/emotions/intentions to other people. This ability to attribute mental states has been conducive to the survival of the species (in line with our naturalistic framework); but in the comforts of modern society where the necessities for survival contrast our most primitive concerns, the determination to attribute mental states to others (making inferences based on our prior experiences) is still our default position and, as teachers are human beings, and humans are constrained by our biological limitations governed by the laws of physics, folk psychology remains rife in the classroom. When talking about the boys gardening, whilst it is sufficient to say they ‘feel’ curious, it is not accurate to say they are. What they are feeling is the innate drive to build on prior knowledge – their sense of ‘curiosity’ manifests as a result of indeterminate neural pathways and the necessity to make sense of what would otherwise remain a nonsensical activity. Whilst there is a wealth of knowledge related to intuitive theories of learning, only the scientific methodology can disclose the truth behind our intuitions.

In discussing education in the broader context of objective truth, we need to be equipped with being able to draw a distinction between sense and nonsense. I have 4 criteria that offer remarkably good ways of dealing with the problem. Firstly, is someone trying to sell you something? Chances are (despite what I see as honest and sincere educators) people are selling you something that appeals to your common sense but nonetheless has little to no credibility – and as pointed out in prior blogs, lead to wasted time, effort and money with little to no changes in classroom practice and student achievement. Which brings me to my second point – does it have predictive success and explanatory power that is measurable? Thirdly, whatever the theory of teaching or learning may be - is it falsifiable? That it so say, the strength of the scientific method lay not in the ability to prove an idea correct, but the inability to prove it wrong (herein lies the strength of the scientific method). Lastly, if the concept has predictive success and explanatory power but nonetheless has no objective existence, then what empirically verified processes can it be reduced to? Whether we are talking about folk psychological concepts such as referred to above, or intuitive based concepts around learning, we need to interrogate them and reduce them to scientifically validated principles in order to be able to talk about them in more accurate and pertinent ways.

Something such as ‘the Zone of Proximal Development’ has an entrenched existence in educational discourse. Firstly, are people selling us this concept? YES. Many people/programs/theories market themselves on this theory and make money validating their claims and products on this concept. Does it have predictive success and explanatory power? YES, it is instrumentally useful in analysing student’s prior knowledge and making informed judgements about where to take students next. Is it falsifiable? YES because the ‘Zone of Proximal Development’ does not exist in itself; it only approximately refers to something more fundamental. Does it need reduction? YES, the ‘Zone of Proximal Development’ needs reduction to more fundamental processes in order for us to understand it better. There is no doubt it approximates something and guides us in the right direction, but once again, the intuitive nature of the theory needs reducing to a naturalistic framework that is guided by the biological, chemical and physical processes that govern everything from the quantum to the cosmological.

Thought for the day.

Jesse Stephens

28/06/2016

For research on understanding the difference between science and pseudoscience see:

Pigliucci, M, 2010 Nonsense of Stilts: How to tell Science from Bunk

Kuhn, T. The Nature of Scientific Revolutions (on paradigm shifts)

Popper, Karl, 1963. Conjectures and Refutations (on falsifiability and demarcation)

For Research on Reductionism and Folk Psychology see:

Any work by Patricia and Paul Churchland on Eliminativism and Folk Psychology

Any suggestions are welcome.