Training Studies: An Experimental Design to Advance Educational Neuroscience

Abstract

The promise of educational neuroscience lies in its potential to uncover mechanistic insights into the science of learning. However, to realize that promise, the field must overcome a fundamental difference between the constituent disciplines: neuroscience is primarily concerned with understanding how the brain works; whereas education attempts to change the brain regardless of its workings. Learning is one domain where these orientations align: it is a deep feature of nervous systems and a target outcome of education. This article proposes coupling training studies with neuroimaging to assess the impact of real-world learning on brain activity patterns, and simultaneously ask fundamental questions about the causal role of specific patterns of brain activity in academic skill acquisition. Finally, planning and implementing these studies requires multiple forms of expertise and collaborating across disciplines, which will contribute to a more cohesive educational neuroscience research community.A fundamental challenge for educational neuroscience is establishing the added value that studying the brain brings to educational questions. The potential of neuroscientific methods lies in their capacity to uncover the mechanism of effective instruction. Knowing not only if an approach works, but why it works, can help refine instructional practice and improve outcomes. Despite this promise, most educational neuroscience research has yet to yield practical information useful in the classroom. Here, I propose that a

Linking inhibitory control to math achievement via comparison of conflicting decimal numbers

“…This perspective also affords research that can eventually leverage these associations into classroom-applicable insights via training studies (Rosenberg- Lee, 2018). For example, if inhibitory control specifically contributes to understanding conflicting decimals, which then supports acquisition of later mathematical content, then we would expect specific training in processing these decimals to be more effective in boosting math outcomes than a more general inhibitory control training program.…”

Probing the neural basis of rational numbers: The role of inhibitory control and magnitude representations

“…It is vital to track the expansion and refining of number representations through the acquisition of this challenging material. If we can identify the end state of successful math instruction, then we can combined instruction and neuroimaging to track the efficacy of different instructional approaches in inducing the desired proficient performance profile in both brain and behavior (Rosenberg- Lee, 2018).…”

From Non-symbolic to Symbolic Proportions and Back: A Cuisenaire Rod Proportional Reasoning Intervention Enhances Continuous Proportional Reasoning Skills

“…Training studies have the potential of uncovering the mechanisms that underpin effective learning programs (Rosenberg-Lee, 2018). Emerging research has pointed to non-symbolic proportional reasoning as a building block for later fraction understanding (Siegler et al, 2011;Matthews et al, 2016).…”