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Psychology is already quite lousy as a science, which has hardly made progress in 100 years, but educational sciences bungle somewhere below even social psychol
by tgv 4y ago
Psychology is already quite lousy as a science, which has hardly made progress in 100 years, but educational sciences bungle somewhere below even social psychology. There's no reproducability, there's no idea of how the learning process works, let alone how to organize a curriculum. They've got no idea what they're doing, yet populate the school boards and ministeries, and mandate methods and topics.
We should take training teachers more seriously, pay them properly, and let them use time-honored methods until there's something that's truly better. A teacher, if close enough to the pupil, will be able to see what works and what doesn't.
- AbrahamParangi 4y agoOne of the downsides of credentialism seems to me that in squishier fields you can end up creating false-credentials where none should exist.
- robertlagrant 4y agoI think this comment should be removed, as it ranks below 7 on the Rob-Grant scale.
- onionisafruit 4y agoYou made me google rob-grant scale only to come back here and notice your handle. Good job, Rob.
- robertlagrant 4y agoNow it needs to be a real scale.
- TheOtherHobbes 4y agoPsychology works just fine in marketing, advertising, politics, media, and even in game design. If it's not being used in schools it's not because it's ineffective.
- tgv 4y ago> Psychology works just fine in marketing, advertising, politics, Does it really? I think there isn't even good data on the effectiveness of marketing and advertising, let alone on the correctness of psychological theories used. Marketing and advertising run on common sense and FOMO.
- cratermoon 4y ago> I think there isn't even good data on the effectiveness of marketing and advertising Thinking that is a kind of proof that marketing and advertising work - to get people to believe they aren't being profoundly influenced by marketing and advertising.
- tgv 4y agoI happened to work in academic cog/neuro-sci research, and have ended up programming for a company that's doing some form of market research, but I haven't seen that data. Sure, advertising works, but how, and to what extent? There's a bunch of competing frameworks, each with their own research school, but it's more marketing than science. 20 to 30 dissimilar points on a 2D grid with a linear regression line, that's their evidence. Marketeers are an easy target, though. They can't afford to ignore it, so they buy into some of those theories. And drop them just as easily. But they have to pretend it works. If you've got good data on marketing effectiveness, I'd like to see it.
- cratermoon 4y agoThe original assertion was that psychology works just fine in marketing and advertising, and you asked "does it really?" Here you say, "Sure, advertising works". While quantitative data on how it works and how effective it is might be lacking, the point is that it does work. The remaining questions are of the "more study is needed to draw any conclusions" kinds of objections that the tobacco industry used to obfuscate the hazards of smoking and that the petrochemical industry uses today to prevent action on global warming. It's is this kind of uncertainty and doubt that I'm asserting is why so many people are still unclear about how much influence marketing and advertising have over their choices.
- nmca 4y agoJust to steelman for a second but educational research is obviously quite hard (long horizons, large costs including opportunity costs, vulnerable groups necessitating careful ethical standards and consideration). I'd still give the folks involved a D-, but the average evidence being weaker than Psych is to be expected given equal investment.
- thegrimmest 4y agoThere's lots of very good research on learning going back decades. For instance the work of Paul Pimsleur.