CGS Research/Read/Reflect #16
A weekly round-up of the most interesting research, blogs and podcasts, shared by Mark Roberts, Director of Research at Carrickfergus Grammar School.
Research:
Is testing students after lunch a bad idea? A recent study by Wise, Kuhfeld & Lindner (2024) found that pupils taking low-stakes tests in maths and reading reduced their effort in the afternoon, compared to efforts earlier in the day. Specifically, students exhibiting low response time efforts nearly doubled in reading and tripled in maths. So should we ditch our post-prandial retrieval practice? Well, two important caveats to this research. First, the tests were administered online, so response times may have lowered in a way that they wouldn’t in a normal classroom. Second, while response times dropped significantly, ‘the prevalence of significant performance decline showed little change across time of day’.
Read:
Are gender stereotypes at home hindering female students’ progress in STEM subjects? This Guardian article, published this week, cites a UCL study which found that, regardless of gender ‘parents tend to be overconfident about their children’s academic performance in reading and maths’. Yet when it comes to maths, ‘parents overestimated boys’ skills to a significantly greater extent’. Working with parents to tackle these self-fulfilling stereotypes about girls and STEM is clearly vital. But I’d also love to see a parallel study focused on girls and English. My hunch is that we’d see the opposite effect, with parents being more likely to overestimate girls’ English skills.
Reflect:
The sky-high quality of the Mind the Gap podcast continues with the latest edition, featuring guests Jade Pearce and Isaac Moore, co-authors of a new book, Bjork & Bjork's Desirable Difficulties in Action. The fascinating conversation considers how using challenging pedagogical strategies can actually aid pupils' learning.