Understanding emotions, learners and achievement
Part 2: The role of schools in child and adolescent mental health. This is part 2 of a summary of Are the kids alright? Examining the intersection between education and mental health. Part 1 and context can be found here. The role of schools in contributing to the ‘crisis’ Humphrey asserts that the transformation ofContinue reading Crisis? The Intersection between education and mental health, Part 2
Part 1: Is there a child and adolescent mental health crisis? Are we currently in the throws of a child and adolescent mental health crisis? If we are, is our current education system in some way to blame? These questions might seem simple enough, but when we dig a little deeper we find that anyContinue reading Crisis? The Intersection between education and mental health, Part 1
Is there a relationship between your personality type and how you score on an IQ test? The study of personality and intelligence share a number of important factors. The overriding one, perhaps, pertains to the sphere of behavioural genetics, the study of the heritability of human behaviour. What do we mean by heritability? The termContinue reading Personality Type and Intelligence
Conscientiousness is a Big 5 trait associated with commitment and persistence, the skill of staying on track and battling through despite setbacks and minor hiccups. It shares many of its characteristics with other traits such as grit (indeed, many researchers see grit as simply conscientiousness repackaged). Persistence is a trait in its own right andContinue reading Is Conscientiousness all it’s cracked up to be?
A recent Twitter poll asked the following question: If a student behaves with one teacher and not another, it means they’re choosing when they behave.” (Interpret as you want & comment if you want to expand) I was interested in how the question implied that participants should consider the causality of behaviour, that is,Continue reading Behaviour, Causality and Social Cognition.
This is the first part of planned series on attention and its relationship to other cognitive processes. Many years ago I recall sitting in a room at Durham University, headphones piping into my brain words I can no longer recall. As the words were uttered I was repeating them out loud, as I had beenContinue reading Are you paying attention?
(A version of this article appeared at The Huffington Post in 2016) We often view emotions as contained within the individual, sitting privately in our own minds or in the minds of others. However, emotions felt by one group or individual have a powerful influence on the emotional states of others (psychologists call this ‘affectContinue reading Why stress is contagious
Personality is rarely talked about in educational circles and, probably, for good reason. Not only it is a fairly contentious issue (although not quite as contentious as IQ) it also flies in the face or our deep-seated belief that we are in control of our own lives. That doesn’t stop us from completing that personalityContinue reading Does Personality Matter?
In a world full of noise the quiet ones often get left behind, their voices drowned out by the cacophony of braver, bolder and more confident children. In a culture where extroversion appears so highly valued, it is all too easy to neglect the introverts, viewing them as merely shy and in need of encouragementContinue reading The Introvert In The Classroom
An oft-heard suggestion in teaching is that making information relevant to pupils results in better learning of the material. For example, in a lesson about the conditions in the trenches during the First World War, we might ask pupils to imagine what it would be like. Some teachers might even extend this and set aContinue reading Make It Personal: The Self-reference Effect
