The prevalence of neuromyths among Hungarian teachers
What led you to form a research group to study children's psychomotor development?
When we founded our research group, our common interest, our previous scientific activities and our personal experiences led us to start looking through a critical lens at a topic that has many elements directly related to childhood motor development. The core members of the team, Tamás Csányi and Katalin Kälbli, both have significant publications and practical experience in the field, while I myself am a neurobiologist working on the neurobiological background of motor development. The work could not have been started without the support of the Research Programme for Public Education Development of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, which we thank for its support.
Children's psychomotor development has been the focus of renewed interest over the last two to three decades, thanks to new scientific approaches and technological tools. This has partly led to a shift in paradigm in the international literature on motor development since the 1990s. At the same time, there has been a mushrooming of various movement development and movement therapy methods for children. Unfortunately, many of these methods often promise effects (especially for parents) that are not supported by adequate evidence and that are based on assumptions. Many of these methods were developed on the basis of theories that were popular in the 1930s and 1960s but which have since been overturned or have been significantly superseded, so their theoretical basis is fundamentally questionable. One example is the idea of locomotor development as a strictly linear process, which is closely linked to the long-rejected theory that the stages of individual development were mapped into the stages of phylogeny.
Thanks (also) to social media
there is considerable misinformation for both professionals and parents with regard to various developmental practices.
In essence, this has directed us towards the neuromyths that appear in education, with beliefs about motor function and motor development being in the top five.
What are these neuromyths, and do we know why and how they are spread and become accepted, even in education?
Neuromyths are beliefs based on misunderstandings, and sometimes deliberate misinterpretations, of information, phenomena and neuroscientific findings about brain function, learning and the nervous system. These misconceptions are also widespread in the education system and are often linked to various so-called neuropedagogical ideas that can directly influence practical pedagogical work. Unfortunately, they are propagated by market players who offer a package of attractive-sounding methods and programmes for treating learning difficulties, for example, often with unsubstantiated claims of scientifically proven effects. Thus, bona fide parents and educators, who are sometimes prepared to make serious sacrifices for children's development, are not necessarily equipped with the knowledge to verify these claims.
Can you give some examples?
For example, there are particularly common misconceptions that there is "right hemisphere" and "left hemisphere" learning, that motor coordination exercises improve reading skills, or that learners can be divided into visual, auditory and kinesthetic types based on learning style and should be taught accordingly.
What can you do about it?
In the sphere of education
there is a growing demand for evidence-based methods and procedures,
but also for taking action against pseudoscientific or outdated approaches. It is problematic in itself if educators and development professionals have misconceptions, disseminate misinformation about the functioning of the human brain, or use ineffective developmental practices. This is not only a waste of time and money, but also takes away opportunities and resources for effective learning and development. Our aim is to draw attention to this problem, to summarise the available, robust literature and to make recommendations on how to prevent neuromyths. There is still much work to be done.
In their recently published study, the MTA-ELTE Psychomotor Development Research Group compared Hungarian data with the knowledge of teachers in twenty-four countries. How was the research conducted?
A scoping review was carried out to identify the neuroscientific findings from both student teachers and practising teachers. Using a questionnaire survey, we calculated in both cases scores characterising both general neuroscience literacy and the prevalence of beliefs about neuromyths.
Thus, among teachers and student teachers, an interest in and basic knowledge of neuroscience does not necessarily lead to a more critical approach and a more effective filtering of misinformation.
Ninety-six percent of the respondents showed a strong interest in neuropedagogical methods, but their knowledge is often derived from social media and various home-based movement therapy courses, with only a very small proportion of them reading English-language literature.
For both samples, we found that Hungarian participants had a high level of belief in neuromyths compared to their international counterparts, while scoring well on general neuroscience literacy. Surprisingly, a more favourable general neuroscientific literacy was associated with a stronger belief in false beliefs in both groups studied, that is,
those with higher levels of basic brain literacy were more likely to believe in neuromyths.
Is there a difference in the acceptance of neuromyths between teachers already working in public education and student teachers?
In our research, we studied two large samples, comprising student teachers and practising teachers, with nearly 1,000 to 1,000 people. The main questions concerned how their general neuroscientific literacy is characterised, how much they believe in neuromyths, the most common myths in our country, and the factors that guard them against misconceptions. In one of our studies, we also compared student teachers and practising teachers and found that, to a small extent, practising teachers believed more in misconceptions.
Special needs teachers were also involved in the research: why was this collaboration necessary, and how do the different professionals complement each other?
Our experience shows that in our country, the field of special needs education is particularly exposed to the proliferation of developmental methods that are not scientifically based or that are even pseudo-scientific.
Physical activity and movement development is an extremely important part of a child's development and growth, which is particularly true for children with atypical development. The members of the research team contribute to the collective results from different perspectives according to their competences, thus strengthening multidisciplinary thinking. In addition, our research group works closely with the MTA-ELTE Language-Learning Disorders Research Group, which is led by Bence Kas.
What is the next step?
We want to disseminate our results and conclusions as widely as possible. We want to raise awareness of the importance of developing critical thinking, disseminating scientific knowledge and using credible sources. We are already seeing positive signs in practice: for example, one website promoting a development process is already communicating what they think their programme does not do. We hope that others will follow suit.
How far can the results be expected to be integrated into teacher training?
The study of neuromyths is a young field of research, with the first results only appearing in the early 2010s. Fortunately, there is considerable interest in our results outside the field of pedagogy and teacher education. On a positive note, we have already received concrete feedback on the incorporation of our new literature into the curriculum of some university courses when they are "revamping" their content.
The study is available via this link: In-service teachers’ neuroscience literacy in Hungary: A large-scale cross-sectional study