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ERIC Number: EJ974895
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2012-Sep
Pages: 3
Abstractor: ERIC
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: ISSN-1751-2271
EISSN: N/A
Teacher Perceptions of NeuroEducation: A Mixed Methods Survey of Teachers in the United States
Serpati, Lauren; Loughan, Ashlee R.
Mind, Brain, and Education, v6 n3 p174-176 Sep 2012
Pickering and Howard-Jones (2007) reported educators' enthusiasm for NeuroEducation from a sample of teachers attending neuroscience professional development courses. Their results revealed teachers: (1) are enthusiastic about the role of neuroscience in education; (2) believe an understanding of the brain for educational program development is important; (3) believe a translation of neuroscience knowledge is essential to effectively serve the needs of educators; and (4) believe communication between the two fields needs to be increasingly emphasized. While this study shed light on teachers' perceptions of NeuroEducation, greater depth is still needed as the bridging of the two fields has yet to come to fruition. This study expands the application of Pickering and Howard-Jones's (2007) questionnaire and aims to directly address the claims mentioned in theoretical literature by: (1) identifying quantitatively what teachers regard as beneficial in NeuroEducation; and (2) qualitatively exploring teachers' experiences and viewpoints on how neuroscience could assist their practice. While the results from the Likert-response survey items were overwhelmingly positive, indicating that teachers in the United States are quite enthusiastic about the potential of NeuroEducation, one trend in these results is not aligned with findings from Pickering and Howard-Jones and warrants discussion. That is, a larger number of teachers in the sample reported that a dialogue between educators and neuroscientists is not or less important. This may be due to beliefs that knowledge can be acquired on their own through other sources (books, conferences, and journals) without having to interact with neuroscientists. The evidence that teachers see a two-way dialog as less important, while NeuroEducation and neuroscientists find it very important, helps explain the complexity and challenges in bridging the gap between neuroscience research and pedagogy. This survey of teachers in the United States has emphasized the prevailing enthusiasm for the bridging of neuroscience and education. This study has identified target areas for future research on bridging the NeuroEducation dialogue. The two main areas for future research should focus on information dissemination (e.g., in-depth professional development) and framing research problems that are more usable for teachers (e.g., detrimental pedagogy). (Contains 1 table.)
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Publication Type: Journal Articles; Reports - Research
Education Level: N/A
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: N/A
Identifiers - Location: United States
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A