Carol, not to stress, this is "normal." My colleague and I have been studying student myths and misconceptions for over a decade. Most students score around 35% accuracy on a general misconceptions test. One thing: if you don't address both the myth and the evidence for the correct information in immediate juxtaposition, you won't see any long term change.
She teaches developmental and just gave a pretest to her students who are all graduating seniors and the overall score was something like 40% accuracy--which is actually better than a lot of the literature shows. Maybe because they took intro psych from one of us who is trying to stamp out poor thinking. Annette ps: I bet most of your biopsych students think that if there is an fMRI study supporting a finding it is more robust than without that. But that is also not necessarily the case! Annette Kujawski Taylor, Ph. D. Professor, Psychological Sciences University of San Diego 5998 Alcala Park San Diego, CA 92110 tay...@sandiego.edu<mailto:tay...@sandiego.edu> ________________________________ From: Carol DeVolder [devoldercar...@gmail.com] Sent: Sunday, February 06, 2011 9:54 PM To: Teaching in the Psychological Sciences (TIPS) Subject: Re: [tips] Remember That Myth That We Only Use 10% Of Our Brain? Thanks for the cautionary note--that leaves 90%, er, 80%. Or maybe the left half. Or the right half. Shoot, now I'm confused. On Sun, Feb 6, 2011 at 11:42 PM, Jim Clark <j.cl...@uwinnipeg.ca<mailto:j.cl...@uwinnipeg.ca>> wrote: Hi Carol be very careful to bang the part of your head / brain that you do not use! Jim James M. Clark Professor of Psychology 204-786-9757 204-774-4134 Fax j.cl...@uwinnipeg.ca<mailto:j.cl...@uwinnipeg.ca> >>> Carol DeVolder <devoldercar...@gmail.com<mailto:devoldercar...@gmail.com>> >>> 06-Feb-11 10:48:43 PM >>> When this Spring semester began a few weeks ago, I gave a short pre-test to students in my 3rd-year level Brain and Behavior classes. One question read something like, "Generally we use _____." the answers were a. 10%, b. 20%, c. either the left half or the right half of the brain exclusively. d. our entire brain. Sadly, in two sections of approximately 30 students, a little over half chose an incorrect answer. This is after three years of college, and all of these students have had Intro Psych and I know they covered at least one chapter on biopsych in it. I didn't look at which item they chose most often, but I may go back and do just that. I wonder if I give it at the end of the semester I can compare and see an "improvement" from 10% (choice a) to 20% (choice b). Sigh...makes me want to bang my head against the wall. On Sun, Feb 6, 2011 at 9:41 PM, Mike Palij <m...@nyu.edu<mailto:m...@nyu.edu>> wrote: > So, I'm watching the last couple of minutes of the Super Bowl (for non-U.S. > Tipsters, it is a football [no, not soccer] game) and a commercial for a > new > movie comes on. Now, I've tried to turn off my attention when commercials > come on but then I hear a voice over say something like "what if you could > use more than 20% of your brain?" It is for a movie starring Bradley > Cooper > and Robert De Niro (Oh! How the mighty have fallen!) titled "Limitless". > My first response was "well, I hope those folks would stop making > commercials > like this" but I digress. This was the first time I heard of people only > using 20% > instead of the traditional 10% (for debunking the 10% myth of brain usage, > see: > http://faculty.washington.edu/chudler/tenper.html > and/or > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/10%25_of_brain_myth ) > > Now I'm wondering: "Did I mis-hear the commercial? Did they really say > 20% instead of 10%?" A quick search of the InterWebs indicate that > indeed, we must be getting smarter because we are now using 20%. > Consider the following article that previews the movie "Limitless": > http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2010/dec/22/limitless-trailer-bradley-cooper > > So, if drugs can make you use more of your brain, clearly drugs are a > good thing (which is an argument I imagine used by undergraduates who > use provigil and adderall to keep pepped up during the semester). In > any event, I guess we should expect students to ask about why we only > use 20% of our brains and have an answer prepared for them: > > "Only some people in Hollywood appear to use only 20% of their brains." > > -Mike Palij > New York University > m...@nyu.edu<mailto:m...@nyu.edu> > > > > > --- > You are currently subscribed to tips as: > devoldercar...@gmail.com<mailto:devoldercar...@gmail.com>. > To unsubscribe click here: > http://fsulist.frostburg.edu/u?id=177920.a45340211ac7929163a0216244443341&n=T&l=tips&o=8558 > or send a blank email to > leave-8558-177920.a45340211ac7929163a0216244443...@fsulist.frostburg.edu<mailto:leave-8558-177920.a45340211ac7929163a0216244443...@fsulist.frostburg.edu> > -- Carol DeVolder, Ph.D. Professor and Chair, Department of Psychology St. Ambrose University 518 West Locust Street Davenport, Iowa 52803 563-333-6482 This e-mail might be confidential, so please don't share it. --- You are currently subscribed to tips as: j.cl...@uwinnipeg.ca<mailto:j.cl...@uwinnipeg.ca>. To unsubscribe click here: http://fsulist.frostburg.edu/u?id=13251.645f86b5cec4da0a56ffea7a891720c9&n=T&l=tips&o=8560 or send a blank email to leave-8560-13251.645f86b5cec4da0a56ffea7a89172...@fsulist.frostburg.edu<mailto:leave-8560-13251.645f86b5cec4da0a56ffea7a89172...@fsulist.frostburg.edu> --- You are currently subscribed to tips as: devoldercar...@gmail.com<mailto:devoldercar...@gmail.com>. To unsubscribe click here: http://fsulist.frostburg.edu/u?id=177920.a45340211ac7929163a0216244443341&n=T&l=tips&o=8564 or send a blank email to leave-8564-177920.a45340211ac7929163a0216244443...@fsulist.frostburg.edu<mailto:leave-8564-177920.a45340211ac7929163a0216244443...@fsulist.frostburg.edu> -- Carol DeVolder, Ph.D. Professor and Chair, Department of Psychology St. Ambrose University 518 West Locust Street Davenport, Iowa 52803 563-333-6482 This e-mail might be confidential, so please don't share it. --- You are currently subscribed to tips as: tay...@sandiego.edu<mailto:tay...@sandiego.edu>. 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