Parents of GCSE and A-level students taking their exams this month will know how important encouragement is. But they might be surprised to learn that how we understand the brain can affect academic success.
Psychology professor Carol Dweck gave two groups of schoolchildren a whole-day tutorial on the brain. She told the first group that parts of the brain are determined within days of conception, no new nerve cells are produced in adulthood, and the anatomy of the human brain is similar to a rat’s. With the other group she focused on how the brain is always changing and remodelling itself, and how every experience affects connections in the brain.
She followed the two groups of students, who had been given equally true, but different, pictures of the brain. A year later, the group that thought that the brain changes over time were doing much better across the board at school than those who believed the brain is fixed.
Dweck concluded that the second group were studying harder at subjects they were improving at rather than things they were already good at. Perhaps stressed students – and parents – should take note.
Dr Daniel Glaser is director of Science Gallery at King’s College London
