Papadatou-Pastou Marietta, Haliou Eleni, Vlachos Filippos
Faculty of Primary Education, Research Center for Psychophysiology and Education, School of Education, National and Kapodistrian University of AthensAthens, Greece.
Cognition and Health Research Group, Department of Experimental Psychology, University of OxfordOxford, United Kingdom.
Front Psychol. 2017 May 29;8:804. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2017.00804. eCollection 2017.
Although very often teachers show a great interest in introducing findings from the field of neuroscience in their classrooms, there is growing concern about the lack of academic instruction on neuroscience on teachers' curricula because this has led to a proliferation of neuromyths. We surveyed 479 undergraduate (mean age = 19.60 years, = 2.29) and 94 postgraduate students (mean age = 28.52 years, = 7.16) enrolled in Departments of Education at the University of Thessaly and the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens. We used a 70-item questionnaire aiming to explore general knowledge on the brain, neuromyths, the participants' attitude toward neuroeducation as well as their reading habits. Prospective teachers were found to believe that neuroscience knowledge is useful for teachers (90.3% agreement), to be somewhat knowledgeable when it comes to the brain (47.33% of the assertions were answered correctly), but to be less well informed when it comes to neuroscientific issues related to special education (36.86% correct responses). Findings further indicate that general knowledge about the brain was found to be the best safeguard against believing in neuromyths. Based on our results we suggest that prospective teachers can benefit from academic instruction on neuroscience. We propose that such instruction takes place in undergraduate courses of Departments of Education and that emphasis is given in debunking neuromyths, enhancing critical reading skills, and dealing with topics relevant to special education.
尽管教师们常常对在课堂上引入神经科学领域的研究成果表现出极大兴趣，但人们越来越担心教师课程中缺乏神经科学方面的学术指导，因为这导致了神经神话的泛滥。我们对色萨利大学和雅典国立与卡波迪斯特里亚大学教育系的479名本科生（平均年龄 = 19.60岁，标准差 = 2.29）和94名研究生（平均年龄 = 28.52岁，标准差 = 7.16）进行了调查。我们使用了一份包含70个条目的问卷，旨在探索关于大脑的一般知识、神经神话、参与者对神经教育的态度以及他们的阅读习惯。结果发现，未来的教师认为神经科学知识对教师有用（90.3%表示认同），在大脑方面有一定的知识储备（47.33%的断言回答正确），但在与特殊教育相关的神经科学问题上了解较少（36.86%回答正确）。研究结果进一步表明，关于大脑的一般知识是防止相信神经神话的最佳保障。基于我们的研究结果，我们建议未来的教师可以从神经科学的学术指导中受益。我们提议在教育系的本科课程中开展此类指导，并强调破除神经神话、提高批判性阅读技能以及处理与特殊教育相关的主题。
