Education influenced more by eduquacks rather than sound research - Open Universiteit

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Education influenced more by eduquacks rather than sound research

Paul A. Kirschner, Distinguished University Professor and Professor of Educational Psychology in the Welten Institute of the Open University in the Netherlands has been raising a lot of eyebrows in the international press in recent weeks with his argument that digital natives simply don’t exist. Together with dr. Pedro de Bruyckere, Paul recently wrote a paper on digital natives and multitasking in the journal Teaching and Teacher Education in which he presents scientifically-sound evidence showing that there is no such thing as a digital native.

Paul then goes on to show how one of the alleged abilities of students in this generation, the ability to multitask, simply does not exist and argues that designing education that assumes the presence of this ability hinders rather than helps learning. This article was first highlighted by the top international journal Nature News as well as the leading international Science magazine Discover and has since been picked up by well-known outlets like the Huffington Post and the Guardian Online.

And it’s not just the idea of digital natives that has been the focus of Paul’s academic wrath in recent weeks. He also led research with his colleague dr. Gino Camp and carried out by Tim Surma and Kristel Vanhoyweghen into the learning materials used in Dutch and Flemish secondary schools which concluded that much of this material lacks a sound scientific basis and does not sufficiently promote proven methods aimed at optimising teaching. This research has had a lot of attention in Dutch and Flemish press in recent weeks.

“Education is, unfortunately, influenced more by myths spread by eduquacks and self-proclaimed educational gurus than good empirical research. This wouldn’t be such a problem if it wasn’t for the damage that it brings to our children and both their and our futures!”

For more information, please contact: Sally Reynolds, Welten Institute, Open University of the Netherlands, sally.reynolds@ou.nl

Notes to Editors:

The original review paper on digital natives and multitasking in the journal Teaching and Teacher Education is available here.
The article in Discover is here.
The article in Nature is here.
The article in the Huffington Post is here.
The article (in Dutch) on NRC in the Netherlands about learning materials is here.
The article (in Dutch) in the Standaard in Belgium about learning materials is here.