Guess how many scientific articles were cited in 2017 with the word ‘Neuroscience’ in them? Satisfy your curiosity immediately by skipping to the end of this post, or raise your dopamine levels by hanging on to your curiosity until you reach the end.
There are new articles about neuroscience published every day and you’re probably excited by how you can use this information in L&D, but differentiating the ‘neuro-hype’ from valuable information can be hard.
Perhaps you’ve been to a session described as ‘neuroscience’ which turned out to be disappointingly similar to what you’ve seen before but with some brain pictures added. There’s nothing intrinsically wrong with that; brains are interesting and its role in learning vital. But it’s not helpful when poor science is given a platform to validate something regardless of good evidence.
Recently I went to a session called ‘The neuroscience of values and culture at work’ which turned out to ‘neurohype’. The well-meaning facilitators thought they had discovered some ‘evidence’ for the neuroscience underpinning the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI). The data came from an MBTI evangelist who had recorded some of his clients’ brain activity and, unsurprisingly, found what he was looking for. There was no scientific rigour or design in his ‘experiments’ and the ‘researcher’ had sought to prove rather than disprove his own hypotheses, as well as cherry-picking data. The facilitators were effectively hoodwinked by this ‘researcher’ and his EEG machine into thinking this was real science.
As L&D professionals we don’t need to be neuroscientists ourselves but we need to be able to identify scientifically accurate, evidence-based research to validate our practice. We don’t need to keep up with every development in neuroscience, but an understanding of the mechanisms of learning such as motivation, attention and memory helps us develop practical learning solutions that work with the ‘groove of the brain’.
Check out evidence when you come across it; look for critiques of theories as well as proofs. Be aware of our cognitive bias to look for supporting evidence, and resist it. Neuroscience research is done at a granular level and is rarely directly applicable in the real world. Don’t expect to find ‘magic bullets’.
There are valuable, evidence-based theories that can shape our design methodologies so don’t throw the baby out with the bath water and dismiss everything you hear as neuro-hype; instead, learn to recognise good science, identify validated research and remain interested in your brain because there’s lots to learn.
How many Neuroscience articles in 2017?
According to Pubmed, which lists most scientific publications, there were 37,492. In 2018 there have been over 22,500 by 8th June.
Written by Stella Collins, Creative Director of Stellar Learning
Download chapter 1 of Stella’s critically acclaimed ‘Neuroscience for Learning and Development’ for free
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