A Curious View of the World » research

Neuroscience and what it means for education, work and more

Bruce — Sat, 31 Oct 2009 18:47:35 +0000

For over a year, I have been reading and learning about the insights of neuroscience. The starting point for such learning should be the science; Dr Norman Doidge’s book “The Brain that changes itself” is a key popular book in this area. There are other books that have developed this theme for other contexts. In the field of economics, I am reading, “Create Your Own Economy” by Tyler Cowen. There is also Daniel Pink’s book “A Whole New Mind,” that uses neuroscience as a metaphor to think about business and career development.

To my great delight, the Toronto Star newspaper has launched an eight day series on neuroscience by writer Alanna Mitchell. Today’s article is called, “Brains: the secret to better schools.” Most of the examples concern the traditional education setting, mainly the primary school level in fact. However, I think the points made in the article can be generalized to other contexts, not least of which is continuing education. Let me take you through a few quotes from the article to get you thinking and hopefully inspired.

“We used to say that intelligence was 80 per cent genetic and 20 per cent environmental,” says Martin Westwell, a neuroscientist in Adelaide at Flinders University. “Now we tend to say that it’s 20 per cent genetic and 80 per cent environmental.”

The brain is malleable. And the research is showing that if students think they can learn, then they do. If they think their intelligence is fixed at a low level – whether because of social or economic status, skin colour, gender, family history, which country they live in – then they stick to that level.

“It is absolutely clear that the brain is not fixed,” says Westwell. “And in schools the kids who see intelligence as malleable have a better trajectory.”

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To many neuroscientists, today’s mainstream education system is mired firmly where medicine was during the Middle Ages. Practices continue based on tradition, not science, just as medieval doctors used leeches to bleed patients without knowing whether it worked.

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“It’s like lighting the fire. Learning skills are inert until they are driven by intrinsic motivation,” says Jonathan Sharples, a neuroscientist at the Institute for Effective Education at the University of York in England.

It’s the opposite of being ordered to memorize something for no apparent reason and then spitting it out on cue. The human brain just doesn’t respond well to being told to hold the body still for long periods, focus the mind and learn something just because another person tells it to do so. The brain needs context and meaning. It needs to know why it should learn.

All of those observations strike me as promising and worthy of contemplation. The claim that modern education is stuck in the dark ages may be a bit controversial but I think there is something to it. Part of the problem may be that those aspiring to apply neuroscience to formal education systems presume that learning is the only or primary goal of formal education. In contrast, Tyler Cowen argues that economists have identified at least three motivations for education: “First, we go to school to learn something. Second, we go to school to demonstrate our smarts and perseverance, or in other words to show that we can ‘jump through hoops.’ Economics call this the ’signaling model of education.’ Third, we go to school because it is (sometimes) fun.” (Create Your Own Economy, p 106).

You can read an overview of the series and read the rest of the articles over at the Toronto Star.

What do you think of these findings? Would they change how you design education programs? What about how you teach others what you know (either in a formal setting or when you are assisting a friend, colleague or family member)? As a professional dedicated to the effective use of information and knowledge, this series reminds me of the complexity of the problem. And that I shouldn’t accept it when people say they are past learning something.

How To Foster High Value Librarianship: Learning from the evidence-based literature

Bruce — Mon, 10 Aug 2009 01:30:59 +0000

Yesterday, I was reading some articles from the very interesting Evidence Based Library and Information Practice which has me thinking about how librarians and information professionals deliver their services and the value of those services. Over time, I have seen movement away from low value services (e.g. automated circulation machines are now common at public and academic libraries rather than having somebody stand at a desk all day) to value added advice and service (i.e. designing research tools, performing patent research to save money, improving the quality of medical treatments and more). Without further ado, let’s look at two case studies.

The first article – A Librarian Consultation Service Improves Decision-Making and Saves Time for Primary Care Practitioners – was written by Heather Ganshorn (a librarian at Health Information Network Calgary, University of Calgary). This article reviews a recent study published in a medical journal (Just-in-Time Information Improved Decision-Making in Primary Care: A Randomized Controlled Trial, published November 2008). The article examined the impact of primary care practitioners submitting questions to librarians from mobile devices when treating patients. Health professionals saved time and, “63.7% of the answers were rated by participants as having a high positive impact on decision-making…” This type of study – applying the rigour of a medical clinical trial to librarianship – is innovative and worthy of replication. There’s another evidence summary on the positive impact of librarians in the intensive care unit (ICU) as well. Yet more evidence that shows that librarians make a measurable, positive difference in delivering health care.

In order to make greater room for service innovation, one must assess some of the long standing services we offer. One candidate for adjustment is the reference desk. Many people in the field will tell you that many questions (particularly in public and academic libraries) tend to involve directions, technology problems (“The printer is not working!”) and the like. One cannot take action on anecdotes though. A recent evidence review (Staffing an Academic Reference Desk with Librarians is not Cost-effective by Cari Merkley, Librarian at Mount Royal College in Calgary) found that out of close to 7000 reference questions (phone, email and in person) sampled through this decade at Stetson University found that 36% of queries related to printer/copier problems and only “Only 11% (784) of questions logged were deemed sufficiently complex by the researcher to require the attention of a librarian. The remaining 6175 transactions (89% of all those logged) could most likely be handled by a different staffing complement.” The evidence review does raise some methodological questions with the validity of the study, but I think there is something to this. When people want to see their physician, they have to make an appointment. The same thing applies to lawyers, accountants, and other professionals. While I suspect that these findings are generalizable to many academic and public libraries, it would be best to conduct similar investigations of reference desk interactions. Besides, the SLA Alignment Project reveals that many executives tend to value embedded research in working teams more than sitting around in the library or information desk waiting for a question.

Current research projects: professional activities of students and Net Neutrality policies

Bruce — Thu, 09 Apr 2009 19:47:09 +0000

I love everything about research, especially social science research. In class on Tuesday (my final Information Policy class), a guest speaker made the point that library advocacy in Canada suffers from a lack of studies (and that using US data in Canada is rarely convincing). I couldn’t agree more – I often read articles in newspapers about studies conducted in the US and wonder, “Hmm… I wonder if this is true in Canada?” My first professional effort to address this problem was born last summer when I approached Meghan Ecclestone, a fellow student, and proposed that we study the professional development activities of students in the Faculty of Information. Some of the preliminary findings of our study were reported by Dean Seamus Ross at the Ontario Library Association conference back in January. Meghan and I will be presenting our results at this year’s Canadian Library Association Conference in Montréal.

Why did we conduct the study? First, there is almost no information on Canadian students in the information field in the literature (in fact, I found only one study anywhere, about archival studies). Second, I was curious to know more about what my fellow students were up to. Why do I think others in the profession would be interested? Well, I hope that the findings will help employers understand more about students and what they are capable of. It should also assist educators (and professional associations!) in designing programs to meet the needs of students. I don’t want to go into it too much more, but this is the sort of work that I would like to do more of. Almost everyone in education (and libraries etc) would benefit from understanding students better, especially if such understanding raises above the level of anecdote.

In addition to the above, I am conducting research for my Master’s thesis on net neutrality policy in Canada and the United States. Many in Canada may be unfamiliar with this issue as it has a lower profile here than in the US, but that is no reason not to be interested. The debate over Net Neutrality is fundamentally about the future of the Internet and its role in society. Will freedom of expression continue to be protected (or even advanced further)? Will ISPs and governments respect privavy rights? What will happen to non-profit uses of the Interenet such as health research, tele-medicine, education and so forth, if net neutrality fails to be upheld? My project is specifically focusing on the views and activity of civil society organizations such as the Electronic Frontier Foundation, the British Columbia Civil Liberties Association, the American Library Association and so forth. I hope to some day turn this project into academic articles or perhaps a book.

In addition to conducting my own research, I am interested in supporting others as well. I am a member of the Special Libraries Association Research & Development committee which provides grants to researchers. This is my first term working on this Committee and I look forward to reporting more about it later. Needless to say, if you are looking for funds to conduct research on information professionals, please do consider applying for a research grant.