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| Proportion of participants believing in each neuromyth across different countries. The error bars denote 95% confidence intervals. The black diamonds represent the meta-analytic random-effects estimates for each item. See the main text for more details.
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Enthusiasm for research on the brain and its application in education is growing among teachers. However, a lack of sufficient knowledge, poor communication between educators and scientists, and the effective marketing of dubious educational products has led to the proliferation of numerous ‘neuromyths’. As a first step towards designing effective...
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Context 1
... remaining factors did not predict general knowledge of the brain (see Table 4). Figure 1 shows the prevalence of each neuromyth in the different countries where studies like the present one have been conducted so far. The forest plots reveal some interesting consistencies across countries. ...
Context 2
... mention some noteworthy examples, according to the values of I 2 , the idea that there are critical periods of learning after which some types of learning become impossible (I 2 = 98.84%) and the belief that it has been scientifically proven that fatty acid supplements can improve academic performance (I 2 = 98.80%) are the items with the largest level of cross-cultural variation. The forest plots in Figure 1 show that these myths are very popular in some countries (e.g., Turkey and Peru), but not in others (e.g., China). ...
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Citations
... he concept of neuromyth was created by Alan Crokart in the 1980s in the field of medicine. Since then, it has been a very useful contribution to different fields to avoid hoaxes about neuroscientific knowledge that can be negative for human beings (Dekker et al., 2012;Howard-Jones 2014;Ferrero et al., 2016;Im et al., 2018;Yfanty & Doukakis, 2021;Rousseau, 2021). In education, this concept has been much used since 2002, when the OECD published Understanding the Brain: Towards a New Learning Science. ...
... Despite such publications, there is a gap of knowledge on neuroedumyths. While the current studies on neuromyths analyze the misconceptions on the brain and their consequences for education (Dekker et al., 2012;Ferrero et al, 2016;Geake, 2008;Howard-Jones, 2014), there is almost no scientific research and publications about misconceptions in education generated by neuroscientists who talk and write about the consequences of neuroscientific knowledge for education. Some authors say that the solution will come from neuroeducation based on scientific bases from both neuroscience and pedagogy. ...
Scientific literature about neuromyths has proliferated in the last few years. However, there is a gap of knowledge around neuroedumyths. While neuromyths are based on hoaxes about the brain, neuroedumyths use neuroscientific concepts but state consequences for education that are false. This article presents, for the first time, research about neuroedumyths among teachers. This study has applied the innovative methodology of Public Lectures’ Debates Analytics (PLDA), in its ex-post modality. This has meant the analysis, by the twelve participants interviewed in this research, of the conclusions of public lectures’ debates on neuroscience and education. The results show the presence of four neuroedumyths among teachers: The brain needs to be bored to develop; Violence resides in masculine genes; Brain develops almost completely the first three years of life; and There are right-hemisphere students and left-hemisphere students. While neuromyths have been spread among teachers by trainers specialized in education but lacking scientific information about neuroscience, neuroedumyths have been spread among teachers by neuroscientists lacking scientific information on education. Differently to some previous studies which approached this problem as teachers’ errors or ignorance, the results of our study show that the problem is the errors of some teachers’ trainers.
... Previous studies showed that among teachers as well as pre-service teachers interested in neuroeducation, there is a tendency to oversimplify, misunderstand or misinterpret the available scientific evidence (even the adjective "brain-based", widely used for methods acclaimed to be based on neuroscience reflects such oversimplification) (Grospietsch and Lins 2021;Howard-Jones 2014). Failure to distinguish scientific evidence from so-called neuromyths (NM) might lead to the implementation of educational methods In the past decade, the prevalence of neuromyths has been assessed in some Western European countries (Dekker et al. 2012), Southern Europe (Deligiannidi and Howard-Jones 2015;Dündar and Gündüz 2016;Ferrero et al. 2016;Karakus et al. 2015;Papadatou-Pastou et al. 2017;Rato et al. 2013), North America (Blanchette Sarrasin et al. 2019;Ruhaak and Cook 2018; van Dijk and Lane 2020) South America (Gleichgerrcht et al. 2015), Asia (Pei et al. 2015) and Australia (Carter et al. 2020;Kim and Sankey 2018). To our knowledge, only one Polish study assessed in-service teachers in Eastern European countries (Chojak et al. 2021), but our study would be the first to assess neuromyths in this region among pre-service teachers. ...
... The least prevalent neuromyth was the following: "Learning problems associated with developmental differences in brain function cannot be remediated by education." (16.1%), which is consistent with the findings of multiple previous studies (Dündar and Gündüz 2016;Ferrero et al. 2016;Papadatou-Pastou et al. 2017). ...
... In our study, the frequency of incorrect answers was slightly higher among men than among women, that is, men were more likely to believe in NM than women. This finding is similar to those of Dündar and Gündüz (2016), but different from the findings of Ferrero et al. (2016) who reported a higher rate of incorrect answers among women and to other studies that found no significant difference between men and women (e.g., Hermida et al. 2016;Karakus et al. 2015). ...
Teachers with poor neuroliteracy fail to distinguish scientific evidence from neuromyths (NM), which might lead to the implementation of pseudoscientific educational methods. The prevalence of NM and general knowledge about the brain (GKAB) among in-service and pre-service teachers has been assessed in multiple countries, but no such study has been performed in Hungary.
The aims of this study were to (1) assess the neuroliteracy of pre-service teachers, (2) compare the results with those of previous studies and (3) analyze the factors influencing neuroliteracy. Our sample included 822 pre-service teachers from 12 Hungarian universities. We developed a survey including 10 NM and 13 GKAB statements, adapted from a widely used questionnaire. The average
rate of incorrect answers to NM was 56.9%, whereas the average rate of correct answers to GKAB was 70.9%. Male gender and frequency of using Facebook as the primary information source about neuroscience were the only predictors of NM acceptance. In comparison with other studies, the Hungarian pre-service teachers had the second highest endorsement of NM. The most prevalent NM
were linked to motor functions, which might be related to the widespread use and promotion of motor therapies in Hungary.
... Many teachers have acquired what Bruner (1996, p. 46) calls "folk pedagogy, " which reflects certain "wired-in human tendencies" and some deeply fixed beliefs rooted in their social and personal experiences that lack scientific evidence. Empirical research suggests that a significant part of such folk pedagogy is the prevalence of misconceptions about the brain, which are called "neuromyths, " among teachers in different countries and various educational settings (Howard-Jones, 2014;Gleichgerrcht et al., 2015;Dündar and Gündüz, 2016;Ferrero et al., 2016;Düvel et al., 2017;Blanchette Sarrasin et al., 2019;Carter et al., 2020;Torrijos-Muelas et al., 2021;Jeyavel et al., 2022). In 2002, the Brain and Learning project of the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) warned that the rapid proliferation of neuromyths among teachers and other professionals is a challenging phenomenon in educational settings (OECD, 2002). ...
... The existing literature also supports this finding. The results of other studies support that teachers with genuine or scientific knowledge, particularly knowledge about the brain or educational neuroscience, are less likely to have a poor belief system and neuromyths (Dubinsky et al., 2013;Ferrero et al., 2016;Wilcox et al., 2021;Ferreira and Rodríguez, 2022). Teachers' fixed mindset, naïve epistemological beliefs, and neuromyths all constitute a teacher poor belief system that may hinder the quality of their pedagogical skills and decisions. ...
Educational research has shown that teachers’ knowledge and beliefs are two important variables that significantly affect their pedagogical practice and decisions. Relying on the premise that knowledge is superior to beliefs in a pure epistemic dimension and rooted in the previous empirical studies, we examined the hypothesis that teachers’ knowledge of neuroplasticity affects their epistemological belief system mediated by mindset. Using a survey consisting of established scales about these variables, we collected data from a sample of 345 teachers. Structural equation modeling was performed to test the hypothesis. Results showed that the path coefficients (direct effects) from teachers’ knowledge of neuroplasticity to their mindset and epistemological belief system were statistically significant. In other words, we found that teachers with a higher score in the knowledge of neuroplasticity had a growth mindset and a sophisticated epistemological belief system. Teachers’ knowledge of neuroplasticity also had an indirect effect on their epistemological belief system mediated by mindset. This result has a conceptual contribution to the literature because it suggests that teachers’ knowledge of neuroplasticity is a predicting variable for mindset and epistemological belief system. In practice, it provides us with a tool for developing teachers’ growth mindset and sophisticated epistemological beliefs.
... Hence, learning stimuli should match learners' preferred learning styles. Such a match between learning stimuli and learning styles might increase students' chances of learning (Ferrero et al., 2016;Gleichgerrcht et al., 2015;Dandy and Bendersky, 2014;Howard-Jones, 2014;Dekker et al., 2012;Tabatabaei and Mashayekhi, 2012;Gilakjani, 2012;Riener and Willingham, 2010;Mulalic, Shah and Ahmad, 2009;Wintergerst, DeCapua and Verna, 2003). ...
The study investigated the relationship between sensory-specific English learning material stimuli and sensory learning preferences. The study involved 53 English as a foreign language participants. Participants were provided with different sensory-specific English learning material stimuli to analyse their overall comprehension. A canonical correlation analysis was used to analyse the collected data statistically. Auditory learning preference was significantly related to adaptive English learning stimuli (paper texts with sound, images with captions, and sound with images). The canonical correlation coefficient of .665 indicated 44.2% of the variance in English learning was determined by learners with auditory learning preferences and adaptive learning materials.
... As for the within-teacher factors that contribute to neuromyths, research has shown that age, years of teaching, in-service training do not have a significant impact on neuromyths (Dekker et al., 2012). Of these within-teacher factors, only gender appears to have an impact on the prevalence of neuromyths (Ferrero et al., 2016). ...
... The prevalence of neuromyths observed in this study is similar to those reported in other countries as well. For example, in one study, 44% of Spanish teachers believed that we use only 10% of our brains (Ferrero et al., 2016). In other studies, there were 47.4% of Greek teachers who agreed with the statement that we use only 10% of our brains (Papadatou-Pastou et al., 2017) and 28.8% of the Moroccan teachers (Janati Idrissi et al., 2020). ...
... The consistent pattern of the gender effect on neuromyths did not emerge. A study conducted in Spain revealed that gender was a significant predictor of neuromyths (Ferrero et al., 2016). In that study, female teachers were significantly more likely to believe in neuromyths than male teachers. ...
Neuromyths are prevalent in all spheres of life and can be found in all professions. The teaching profession is especially susceptible to neuromyths as teachers want to provide the most effective, science based instruction to their students. Sometimes these instructions are not based on scientific studies but on a misinterpretation of scientific findings or neuromyths. The goal of the present paper was to examine the prevalence of seven popular neuromyths in teachers in Bosnia and Herzegovina (BIH). The research study comprised 300 teachers from all parts of BIH. The research material comprised 300 teachers (232 females and 62 males) from all parts of BIH. Participants were either personally invited to the study or recruited through an online survey sent to schools throughout BIH and teacher organizations. As a me thod we used the Questionnaire consisting of basic demographic information on the participants (gender, working experience, type of teacher) and 7 neuromyths statements on which participants were asked to answer whether they think the statement is true, not true, or they do not know, The results of this study indicate a wide prevalence of neuromyths in BIH teachers. The prevalence ranged from 17% to 82%. The most prevalent myth is about learning styles, while the least prevalent was that drinking less than 8 glasses of water causes a brain to shrink. There were statistically significant differences in the prevalence of neuromyths in relation to the teachers' gender for every statement. However, the trend is not uniform. Although, overall the neuromyths were more prevalent in female teachers (for 5 items), for two neuromyth statements, male teachers had a higher prevalence. Additionally, the prevalence of neuromyths was more frequent in early-grade teachers. It should be noted that there are also differences in the results obtained for the different types of neuromyths. Neuroscience is important for education and for the teachers. Thus, more attention should be given to the process of translating neuro-scientific findings into useful facts for teachers. One way to improve this process is through the continual professional development of teachers in the field of neuroscience.
... According to previous surveys, despite interest of teachers in brain topics, a high percentage believed in neuromyths. Moreover, this happens despite they are teachers from Portugal, Spain, England, The Netherlands, Turkey, or China Rato et al., 2013;Howard-Jones, 2014a;Ferrero et al., 2016). These studies illustrate how teachers will not always be explicitly aware of whether it is or not an evidencebased source. ...
En los últimos años se ha visto un creciente interés por el conocimiento relacionado con el cerebro y las neurociencias. Esto ha llevado a que se genere una importante cantidad de investigaciones y que el contexto propicie el surgimiento de creencias erróneas.
Estudios realizados en varios países convergen en el hallazgo de que el conocimiento sobre neurociencias en todos los campos de conocimiento es pobre y en algunos estudios en Europa y América del Sur, incluso se observó que un mayor interés en neurociencia predice (paradójicamente) una mayor creencia en neuromitos, combinada con una incapacidad para juzgar información como real o pseudocientífica.
La brecha entre la neurociencia cognitiva y el aprendizaje sigue siendo muy amplia . Y una de las consecuencias de esta distancia es la propagación de mitos que en muchos casos cuentan con algún sustento científico pero que son resultado de una malinterpretación o descontextualización de los resultados de investigaciones.
Especialmente en el ámbito de la educación, la necesidad de incorporar recursos que permitan renovar la visión del aprendizaje ha favorecido el desarrollo de estas creencias erróneas, que se convierten en dogma y generan confusión sobre los aquellos aspectos que tienen una base científica y aquellos que deben ser refutados.
... Bei Lehrkräften im Schuldienst ist der Lerntypenmythos ähnlich stark vertreten (z. B. Dekker et al. 2012;Ferrero et al. 2016;Rato et al. 2013). Studien deuten zudem darauf hin, dass (angehende) Lehrkräfte die Instruktion je nach Lerntyp differenzieren (möchten) (z. ...
The learning styles myth is highly prevalent among (pre-service) teachers. Current findings emphasise the effectiveness of conceptual change texts for dissolving misconceptions. This benefit is explained by cognitive conflicts evoked by contrasting misconceptions and facts, encouraging the reflection of one’s own beliefs. It has not been investigated yet if and under which conditions podcasts can promote conceptual change among pre-service teachers. This study investigates whether podcasts can induce conceptual change regarding the learning styles myth among pre-service teachers. First, it is assumed that conceptual change podcasts lead to a greater decline of students’ beliefs regarding the learning styles myth compared to factual podcasts. Second, it is expected that everyday language leads to a stronger decrease of students’ beliefs than academic language as findings from science communication point to the relevance of a language adapted to the addressees for the persuasiveness of arguments. An experimental study with a 2 × 2-design (type of podcast: conceptual change vs. factual podcast; linguistic style: everyday vs. academic language) with 181 pre-service teachers was conducted. Students’ beliefs about the learning styles myth were measured immediately before and after the intervention as well as four weeks later. As assumed, students’ agreement with the learning styles myth decreased stronger after listening to the conceptual change podcasts compared to factual podcasts (p < 0,001, ηp2 = 0,07), and when the podcasts were in everyday language compared to factual language (p < 0,01, ηp2 = 0,04). Consequently, conceptual change podcasts in everyday language seem suitable for revising misconceptions among pre-service teachers.
... These studies' results reveal that different countries' beliefs follow a similar pattern. As examples of these studies, the belief to improve student achievements with information that matches students' preferred learning styles; it is very common among teachers in the United Kingdom and the Netherlands (Dekker, Lee, Howard-Jones, & Jolles, 2012), Argentina, Peru, Chile (Gleichgerrcht, Luttges, Salvarezza, & Campos, 2015), Turkey (Gülsün & Kös eoğlu, 2020;Dündar & Gündüz, 2016;Karakus, Howard-Jones, & Jay, 2015), Greece (Deligiannidi & Howard-Jones, 2015;Papadatou-Pastou, Haliou, & Vlachos, 2017), Spain (Ferrero, Garaizar, & Vadillo, 2016), Portugal (Rato, Abreu, & Castro-Caldas, 2013), and China (Pei, Howard-Jones, Zhang, Liu & Jin, 2015). The belief in the 10% neuromyth has a global prevalence similar to that of the 10% neuromyth. ...
... Studies in the related literature based on this perspective are being conducted with the aim of removing neuromyths from educational practices and policies (Ferreira & Rodríguez, 2022;Dekker & Kim, 2022;Grospietsch & Lins, 2021;Pávová & Valent, 2020;Goswami, 2010;Howard-Jones et al., 2007;Howard-Jones, 2010). The countries covered in these studies are Turkey (Karakus et al., 2015), Greece (Deligiannidi & Howard-Jones, 2015;Papadatou-Pastou et al, 2017), Argentina (Hermida, Segretin, Soni Garcia, & Lipina, 2016), East China (Pei et al., 2015), Spain (Ferrero et al., 2016) and Latin America (Gleichgerrcht et al., 2015). They examined the brain perception patterns of teachers in the countries and regions where these studies were conducted, both in general and specifically. ...
The aim of this study is to determine the neuromyths among Turkish and Israeli high school teachers and compare them across countries. The Educational Neuroscience Data Collection Scale, which was adapted into Turkish by Gülsün and Köseoğlu (2020) from Dekker et al. (2012) with regard to the brain and its functioning, was utilized as the data collection tool. Teachers working in Turkish high schools and teachers working in the Israeli Ministry of Education constituted the study sample. Between June 2019 and December 2020, there were 184 teachers (Turkey:112; Israel: 72) who volunteered to participate in the study. The research model is a relational investigation based on the general screening model. Data analysis included t-test and chi-square tests; when the independent variable was continuous, the t-test was used for independent groups, and when the independent variable was discrete, the chi-square approach was used, in accordance with the assumptions required to make group comparisons. According to the results of the study, there were significant differences between countries about the brain functions and the items related to neuromyths. However, no statistically significant difference was found between the country averages of the items in the data collection tool and the total item. With the intercountry comparison, it is considered that suggestions for eliminating neuromyths of teachers working in countries and suggestions to be made in teacher training programs will be important.
... A ello se suma que, con frecuencia, los educadores no poseen las habilidades y conocimientos esenciales para evaluar críticamente hipótesis y resultados neurocientíficos, lo que les dificulta distinguir las prácticas basadas en la evidencia y las que no (Ferrero et al., 2016;Varas-Genestiera y Ferreira, 2017). Esto produce una brecha entre neurociencia y la práctica docente que puede conducir al surgimiento de ideas erróneas acerca del funcionamiento cerebral, tales ideas se conocen como neuromitos (Organización para la Cooperación y el Desarrollo Económico [OCDE], 2002[OCDE], , 2007, que tienen una rápida difusión y son difíciles de erradicar. ...
Cerebro y aprendizaje tejen relaciones complejas cuyo interés ha crecido en el campo educativo mediante la aplicación de los avances de la neurociencia en la comprensión de procesos de aprendizaje en el aula. No obstante, los docentes no siempre conocen a fondo la naturaleza y función de los procesos neurocognitivos e incluso conservan creencias falsas sobre el cerebro que inducen sesgos en su práctica pedagógica. Este estudio enfocó sus objetivos en analizar los conocimientos sobre el cerebro y los neuromitos en docentes y determinar si esas variables son predichas en función de las características demográficas (edad, género, nivel de formación) y el interés por la neurociencia educativa (formación previa en neurociencia, capacitación en neuroeducación, uso de literatura científica popular y académica) del profesorado. Para ello se desarrolló un estudio empírico de diseño predictivo transversal con una muestra de 308 docentes colombianos en ejercicio (136 hombres, 195 mujeres), con edad promedio de 34.4 años (DT = 11.9), evaluados mediante encuesta en línea. Los resultados muestran que el 99.36% de los participantes presenta neuromitos y niveles moderados de conocimiento cerebral. Predominaron las creencias falsas sobre diferencia hemisférica, estilos de aprendizaje y estimulación cognitiva temprana. Los neuromitos y los conocimientos fueron predichos por la edad del docente, el antecedente de un curso de neurociencia en el pregrado y la consulta de material científico. La discusión se enfoca en la necesidad de revisar y actualizar los planes de formación profesoral desde la neurociencia educativa y la investigación científica.
... Neuromyths have proved difficult to eradicate, either through a brief intervention [11] or a three-month long one [12]. The aim of the findings across different countries in Europe [2,15], Asia [27,28], North America [11,29], and South America [20,30]. Misconceptions are still present after almost two decades since alarms about neuromyths were raised by OECD [14]. ...
... Accuracy to items corresponding to neuroscience knowledge (1, 3, 6, 8, 10, 11, 13, 14, 16-20, 23, 29, 31, 32) and errors to neuromyth items (2,4,5,7,9,12,15,21,22,(24)(25)(26)(27)(28)30) were analysed separately (see Supplementary Table S2, to view each item). All data analyses were conducted using R, version 4.0.3 ...
... Some researchers have warned that the high rates of neuromyths among teachers might be due to the questionnaires used in most studies and not because teachers adhere to neuromyths in realistic situations. Tovazzi and colleagues [46] found that using a new method based on scenarios for neuromyth detection caused the percentage of teachers who adhere to neuromyths to be much lower than when more traditional surveys are used [15,26,47]. This implies that if pre-service teachers were to teach, they would not necessarily base their teaching practice in false beliefs. ...
Misconceptions about the brain (neuromyths) among educators have been found across different countries, but little has been done to dispel them. The present study assessed the effect of a one-year Science of Learning (SoL) course on neuroscience literacy and beliefs in neuromyths in a sample of Chilean pre-service teachers. An experimental group of pre-service teachers, who took the SoL course as part of their university training, and a control group were needed for the study. Participants in both groups completed an online survey three times during the year (beginning, middle and end of year). The results showed that participants in both groups responded correctly to most assertions but held major misconceptions about the brain (Time 1), in line with previous studies. Regarding neuroscience literacy, participants in the experimental and control groups did not differ significantly at Time 1, but the experimental group showed significantly better performance than the control group at Time 2 and Time 3. Unlike neuroscience literacy, the results in neuromyth beliefs did not differ significantly by group at Time 1 and Time 2; however, at Time 3, the experimental group showed a significant decline in neuromyth beliefs. Overall, these results suggest that the SoL course significantly improved overall neuroscience literacy and reduced neu-romyth belief among pre-service teachers, but the effect of the intervention was small.
