Category Archives: Educational Research

Raising the anchor on pupil expectation

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I have been (quite sadly) fascinated by mental anchoring systems for years. This relates to how you can develop quite quickly a fixed perspective on something with no rational reason for it whatsoever.

This came to a head with a Maths lesson I was teaching Year 6 on estimating, and the reading of Alex Bellos’ brilliant book “Alex’s Adventures in Numberland”, which noted that a strong correlation had been found between estimating ability and actual computational ability.

I decided to test the theories out by asking the children in the class to estimate how much an antique book my wife bought for me on ebay cost. I gave them a description of it, and told them that it cost between £1 and £99. It would make sense to suggest that they could have picked any number at all between these two points, so I would have a fairly random ‘spread’ of numbers.

What I did beforehand completely changed that. Before their book price estimation, I asked them to write down the last two digits of their phone numbers. I then explained the ‘Price a book’ challenge, and asked them to write down how much they thought it cost.

The Anchor theory suggested that the random number they first put down would influence the price that they put for the book, even though there was no relation to each of the numbers at all.

The results were startling. I had expected some correlation, but almost every single pupil had put an estimate within around £5 of their (utterly random) telephone number! I drew a chart on the board with two Y axes and joined each pair together to show them visually what they had subconsciously done.

Apologies for the quality of image!

The two exceptions to the anchoring wall were ones which began with very low numbers. Their estimates were wildly higher, presumably because they felt that they anchor was too low to be related to the value of an Antique book.

Although it was fascinating to see happen, and created a lot of debate on what guided our estimating skills in class, it did make me think how easily manipulated children can be by anchored expectations. A simple random number governed their estimating skills. How often do we as teachers take advantage of this and use simple techniques to raise expectations within the children themselves? What do we do to ensure that the children have a growth outlook on their ability, rather than a fixed outlook which dictates what they believe they are capable of achieving?

No answers here from me, but hopefully something to consider!

Further reading:

Gorn, Gerald J, and Marvin E Goldberg. “The impact of television advertising on children from low income families.” Journal of Consumer Research (1977): 86-88.

James, Oliver. “Evaluating the expectations disconfirmation and expectations anchoring approaches to citizen satisfaction with local public services.” Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory 19.1 (2009): 107-123.

Lohrmann, Sharon, and Janet Talerico. “Anchor the Boat A Classwide Intervention to Reduce Problem Behavior.” Journal of Positive Behavior Interventions 6.2 (2004): 113-120.
Switzer, Fred S, and Janet A Sniezek. “Judgment processes in motivation: Anchoring and adjustment effects on judgment and behavior.” Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes 49.2 (1991): 208-229.

Bounce (The myth of talent and the power of practice)

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Bounce by Matthew Syed

(Fourth Estate, £8.99, 2010)

 

(This is the first in a regular series reviewing books outside of the realm of education, and looking at the impact they could have in a learning environment.)

 

Tagline

The myth of talent and the power of practice

 

Lowdown

This is a very powerful and interesting book, with a sporting background as its basis, which looks at the evidence for and against talent. It draws on the previous writing by Malcolm Gladwell, which ascribes to the idea that talent is a created concept, and what is seen as talent is actually at least 10,000 hours of practice. Syed’s writing is however much more involving than Gladwell’s at times, and he takes the reader through the concept of talent versus practice, then pinpoints several key features of practice.

 

10,000 hours of doing anything will not make you an expert he reasons, using driving as an argument, and the practice he recommends is one of focussed, intense practice, driven by coaches who give intense support for areas which are outside the comfort zone of the athlete. He argues that those tricky shots that David Beckham or Tiger Woods take are actually not so unusual to them due to their level of training and focus.

 

The main tenet which is carefully explored in both anecdote and psychological study is that of a fixed mindset versus a growth mindset. The fixed mindset is one which believes in talent, whereas a growth mindset accepts that it takes practice to improve a skill, and that nothing is impossible, simply ‘out of reach.’

 

The book is a very easy read – that is not to disparage the quality of the writing, but to highlight how well the material has been chosen for the reader. Although this book is from a sports/business background, the connections to Education are enormous.

 

The Management Angle

The demand for Gifted and Talented Policies within schools defines a school on a paper sense as having a fixed mindset. This then has the potential to establish a philosophy of talented and non-talented pupils. While it can be argued that there are children who are stronger at some subjects than others, it is always interesting to examine why this is the case, what the origin of this strength might be. Bounce contends that with enough focus, anyone can become talented. How this can be put into Policy, and then embedded in the curriculum, is a challenge for any SMT. The main message for management from ‘Bounce’ would be to stretch all pupils , regardless of their starting point, but to underline this by eliminating the concept of failure and doubt. As Syed says, doubt reduces ambition.

 

The Teacher Angle

One area which is incredibly relevant to teachers is the language used to develop a growth mindset. Syed argues that we should verbally reward the achievement rather than the overarching skill – ‘You really nailled those tables’ rather than ‘You’re so good at maths.’ The very subtle change in language can have a lasting impact in terms of the athlete’s/pupil’s perspective of their ability; the logic being that you get told you are good at Maths often enough, and you can become nervous if you tackle something you feel you ‘should’ be able to achieve.

 

The Pupil Angle

A perception of people being ‘born with talent’ comes from an early age, and is encouraged in popular media. Whether or not we believe that this is the case, it is crucial to instill confidence in pupils that there is no limit to potential, but that lengthy, repetitive and sometimes uncomfortable practice and dedication needs to be put into place in order to progress.

 

Best quote

‘If you don’t know what you are doing wrong, you can never know what you are doing right.’ – Chen Xinhua, Chinese Table-Tennis Coach

 

Ponder now

What about your learning environment is limited by a ‘fixed mindset’? Where was this embedded?

 


Amazon warehouse logic in your classroom

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Amazon, as in RiverA simple experiment in my classroom confirmed what I believed for a while – the eyeline is the buyline in the classroom as well as the supermarket. A box of tissues normally lasts about a week, but moved away from the front of the classroom, one box lasted three weeks. Whether there were more sniffs or not was not recorded! Continue reading →

Feeding Back on Student Feedback

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Any feedback? (Image:Wwworks CC)

Any feedback? (Image:Wwworks CC)

I am about to carry out a school-wide feedback experiment, but first a little background reflecting!

It is perhaps as common in Teaching as it is in other professions, but we tend to let negativity cancel out a disproportionate amount of praise. A successful parent’s evening can be brought down by one comment, and have us brooding for days.

The problem here though is that much of the feedback tends to be (a) from parents, and (b) delivered in extremes – only when a problem is too large to cope do we sometimes hear about it. Continue reading →

Girls participate five times more online than offline: An Investigation

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The results of a small-scale study I have been conducting recently have indicated that, yes, girls contribute up to five times more than in offline discussions. Using the celebrated Edmodo social platform for education, I ran an experiment which involved perception of participation, online and offline discussions, and transcribed the results. A summary of my report is below:

Summary Table
Share of Offline Participation    Share of Online Participation
Girls                              14%                                              70%
Boys                              86%                                             30%

The table above shows the measured findings of the investigation in percentage terms. Any gender imbalances in the size of the cohort have been adjusted in the final results. It indicates that, for this investigation and cohort of pupils, girls are almost five times more likely to actively participate in online discussions, compared to offline discussions.

Three separate tasks were carried, each related to perceived or actual discussions in an offline (i.e. physical) environment or online, using Edmodo.

According to data from the questionnaire, both boys and girls felt more confident at participating online than offline, although they were less likely overall to listen/read other pupil’s opinions. Girls felt less inclined to disagree online overall, and were able to gauge which gender tended to be more active online and offline. Boys were less able to identify the more active gender.

The offline and online data for this investigation suggests that girls have more confidence in participating online because they are able to make their point without interruption. Although online discussions are less linear online, this cohort was able to follow, and debate, several issues at the same time, using a simple online language which ignored most conventional grammatical punctuation.

The aim of this investigation was to examine factors which increase active participation online. These factors would appear to be comfortable with the environment, to be able to follow discussions and have the confidence to accept the ‘ground rules’ and function within them. In addition, both girls and boys would benefit from examining the various roles and etiquette of offline discussion.

What does this tell us? Are boys again likely to be generously behind the achievement of girls with more emphasis on an online curriculum? Are girls more able understand the ground rules of online debate more efficencetly, and therefore survive for longer online? If you were to follow this up, which direction would you take this research?

Back to Black(boards): How less on the board is sometimes more

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I am a keen cook but hopeless with it. Just last week I failed to put yeast into a bread recipe. As a result, I have plenty of recipe books, which are able to open to favoured recipes by way of crumbs, spills and other detritus creating a visual bookmark.

I believe that learners can be the same. There are some who are shown the recipe once, can follow it, remember it, and recreate it at will, whereas others need to see the recipe constantly, to guide them through the stages required, and even see the picture, as an idea of what may be targeted.

I write this out of concern for the impact that digital delivery is having on those learners who rely on these guidelines being on the board. This is not to dismiss the benefit of visualisers, data projectors and the interactivity that whiteboards can have – more, where is the recipe for the student who is struggling? Continue reading →

A comparison of offline and online discussions among children, in relation to the factors that contribute to dominance in these areas

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The aims of the investigation

The expectations of the curriculum at Key Stage Two in Information and Communication Technology require students to be enquiring about current and future practices, and enable the students to investigate ways of communicating to the wider world. The statutory content states that pupils should know ‘how to share and exchange information in a variety of forms,’ as well as ‘describe and talk about the effectiveness of their work with ICT, comparing it with other methods and considering the effect it has on others.’ (2009)

I have informally noticed that, in the majority of classes, some children tend to dominate physical discussions and debates, for a number of reasons. Meanwhile, a different group of children tend to dominate online discussions, again for a range of reasons. Continue reading →