Latest / Dr Justin Coulson's Happy Families / #923 From the Doctor's Desk: Engagement & Mindset

Transcript

#923 From the Doctor's Desk: Engagement & Mindset · Dr Justin Coulson's Happy Families

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  Speaker 1: It's the Happy Families Podcast. It's the podcast for.
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  Speaker 2: The time poor parent who just wants answers Now.
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  Speaker 1: Every month we do one particular episode on the Happy
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  Speaker 1: Families Podcast that I look forward to as much as
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  Speaker 1: any other episode. I'll do better. It's tomorrow. As much
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  Speaker 1: as I love that, it's not even book club, as
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  Speaker 1: much as I love that, today is the day that
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  Speaker 1: we're diving in with the one that I've been waiting
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  Speaker 1: for all year.
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  Speaker 2: You say that like you've been waiting forever. It's only February.
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  Speaker 1: Well, it's only February and we haven't done it yet.
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  Speaker 1: First one for the year. This is I feel like
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  Speaker 1: I need a fan fair, Jr. Can we please have
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  Speaker 1: a fan fair? Thank you? The Doctor's Desk.
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  Speaker 2: I've never hit in the fact, this isn't my favorite episode.
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  Speaker 1: Oh I think that today we're going to do something
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  Speaker 1: about that today on the Doctor's Desk. For those of
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  Speaker 1: you who are new to the podcast, welcome. Doctor's Desk
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  Speaker 1: is basically me looking at either recent research or maybe
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  Speaker 1: some old favorites that help us to understand how we
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  Speaker 1: can help our kids to thrive more. At the start
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  Speaker 1: of the school year, I decided today we're going to
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  Speaker 1: dive into the education sector and we're going to talk
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  Speaker 1: about what is great for kids when it comes to
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  Speaker 1: schooling and what's not so great. So if you're a teacher,
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  Speaker 1: if you're a coach, and certainly if you're a parent,
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  Speaker 1: I think you're going to get loads out of today's conversation.
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  Speaker 2: So we have three studies for you today. We've got
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  Speaker 2: some classroom packs to help motivate students. We're looking at
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  Speaker 2: how mindset impacts academic achievement, and we're also going to
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  Speaker 2: look at how sending our kids to high achieving schools
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  Speaker 2: might actually be bad for them.
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  Speaker 1: I can't wait, So let's do the first one. This
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  Speaker 1: one's about engagement motivation at school. If you're a parent,
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  Speaker 1: you'll note that the same principles that we've unpacked from
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  Speaker 1: the study we're about to touch on work equally well
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  Speaker 1: in your living room or your children's bedroom, or the kitchen.
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  Speaker 1: And if we're a sports coach, maybe a swimming coach,
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  Speaker 1: netball coach, cricket coach, soccer coach, whatever, you'll find these
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  Speaker 1: same principles apply. So we've got a science classroom. Okay,
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  Speaker 1: in fact, forty one science classes two hundred and eighths
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  Speaker 1: high school students six week period, the kids are reporting
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  Speaker 1: on how motivated and engaged they are in science class
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  Speaker 1: as well as the classroom strategies that the teacher is adopting.
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  Speaker 1: And what the research has found was that when teachers
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  Speaker 1: adopted what we're going to call autonomy supportive practices, the
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  Speaker 1: kids were much more engaged and much more motivated. And
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  Speaker 1: when teachers adopted autonomy thwarting practices, unsurprisingly, engagement and motivation dropped.
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  Speaker 2: So we talk about autonomy support a lot on the podcast,
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  Speaker 2: but you're talking about specific practices that we can do
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  Speaker 2: that will help boost our children's motivation.
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  Speaker 1: Exactly and engagement.
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  Speaker 2: So what are those like? What are the practices that
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  Speaker 2: we can do to do that?
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  Speaker 1: So I'm going to share four things that do work,
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  Speaker 1: and then I'm going to share three things that work
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  Speaker 1: against high levels of what the research is called autonomous motivation.
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  Speaker 1: You might call it intrinsic motivation. We're just talking about engagement, okay,
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  Speaker 1: So what boosts that engagement, that autonomous motivation, that desire
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  Speaker 1: to learn and be involved. Four things. Number One, providing
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  Speaker 1: a really clear rationale for what you're asking the behavioral request.
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  Speaker 1: Here's what I want you to do and this is why.
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  Speaker 1: This is why it works, This is why it matters.
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  Speaker 1: Number two, giving students as much choice as you possibly
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  Speaker 1: can within the confines and the restrictions of the curriculum.
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  Speaker 1: At number three, considering what students are actually interested in,
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  Speaker 1: what they prefer like, their preferences and interests matter, and
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  Speaker 1: number four giving them opportunities to ask questions. Those are
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  Speaker 1: the four things that boost autonomous motivation. What makes it drop?
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  Speaker 1: Number one controlling messaging, do this, do that? Not like that?
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  Speaker 1: Like this, suppression of student perspectives. In other words, I'm
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  Speaker 1: being really blunt here. I don't really care what you think.
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  Speaker 1: We just need to do this. This is what we're
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  Speaker 1: doing now. And number three the use of uninteresting activities.
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  Speaker 1: So essentially, whether you're a school teacher or a parent,
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  Speaker 1: or a coach or I don't know, maybe a church
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  Speaker 1: leader who knows you're working down at the local surf
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  Speaker 1: club with kids, if you can provide a rationale, give
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  Speaker 1: them as much choice as is reasonable for the task,
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  Speaker 1: consider their preferences and interests as much as possible, and
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  Speaker 1: give them opportunities to ask questions, they'll be much more
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  Speaker 1: engaged and motivated. If you're controlling, if you don't consider
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  Speaker 1: their perspectives, and if you do the things that they
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  Speaker 1: think are de boring, then their motivation and their engagement
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  Speaker 1: are going to plummet.
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  Speaker 2: This actually played out in our kitchen yesterday as I
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  Speaker 2: was teaching Emily her health lesson. We've been talking a
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  Speaker 2: lot at home about healthy eating habits and choices, and
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  Speaker 2: this is something that miss Nina actually struggles a lot with. Well,
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  Speaker 2: let's be honest, we're all struggling a bit with it,
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  Speaker 2: a lot a little. But part of her lesson was
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  Speaker 2: to unpack the healthy eating pyramid and describe how many
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  Speaker 2: serves she was supposed to have, what they included. And
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  Speaker 2: as we looked at it, she recognized that there was
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  Speaker 2: definitely some deficits in her eating and we then were
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  Speaker 2: able to kind of explore and discuss the ways that
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  Speaker 2: she might change that. And as a result of that,
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  Speaker 2: she decided that she wants to create healthy eating pyramid
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  Speaker 2: of her own, cutting out foods and adding them to it.
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  Speaker 2: And then as she makes her meals each day or
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  Speaker 2: sits down to the table to eat, she can actually
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  Speaker 2: look at the healthy pyramid and be reminded of whether
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  Speaker 2: or not her plate has everything on it that it needs.
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  Speaker 1: I see what you're doing. You're trying to take over
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  Speaker 1: the doctor's desk and move away from science into practice.
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  Speaker 1: I see what you're doing. This is undermining my science
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  Speaker 1: by actually putting it to good use. I love it.
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  Speaker 1: But what you're describing is autonomy supportive practice. You've sat
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  Speaker 1: down and explained why you're doing. By the way, for
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  Speaker 1: those who missed the memo, we're homeschool we're homeschooling. That's
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  Speaker 1: why Kylie's teaching a health class to our nine year old.
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  Speaker 1: You're giving her a whole lot of choice around what
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  Speaker 1: she's doing and how she's doing it. Definitely giving credit
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  Speaker 1: for her preferences and interests, and no doubt she's asking
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  Speaker 1: you a whole lot of questions and engaging with you
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  Speaker 1: because she's got you one on one. What you're not
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  Speaker 1: doing is controlling her, stopping her from having a perspective
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  Speaker 1: or doing an uninteresting activity. So that's studying number one,
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  Speaker 1: our second one. This is a provocative one, Kylie. Everyone's
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  Speaker 1: heard of Carol Dweck Growth mindset, fixed mindset. Prior to
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  Speaker 1: being known for growth mindset content, Carol Dweck wrote a
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  Speaker 1: book called Self Theories. It was one of my favorite
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  Speaker 1: books in the early two thousands, and her work has
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  Speaker 1: literally changed the education landscape. It's essentially championed, i would say,
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  Speaker 1: by anyone who wants to encourage trying, and that's a
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  Speaker 1: good thing, and it's built on this substantial and impressive
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  Speaker 1: body of research. She's a Stanford psychologist, got a great
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  Speaker 1: name across the world, but unfortunately her research over the
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  Speaker 1: last decade or so has become increasingly controversial. The reason
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  Speaker 1: for that is it's getting harder and harder to replicate
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  Speaker 1: what she's found in her studies. Supportive evidence from researchers
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  Speaker 1: other than Carol Dweck is really thin on the ground.
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  Speaker 1: So this is where I want to bring in Brook
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  Speaker 1: Matt Namara and Alexander Burgoyne. They have done some research
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  Speaker 1: that is really a devastating blow to everything that Carol
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  Speaker 1: Dweck and her mindset research have given us. What they
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  Speaker 1: did was they did a review of empirical studies and
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  Speaker 1: looked at how well those studies adhered to a set
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  Speaker 1: of best practices that are essential for drawing causal conclusions
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  Speaker 1: in scientific research. And they also conducted three meta analyses.
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  Speaker 1: Are you still with me. Just okay, you know what
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  Speaker 1: a meta analysis is, metamines looking at something from the outside.
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  Speaker 1: So this is a study of all the studies that
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  Speaker 1: have been done on mindset research. They did three meta analyses,
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  Speaker 1: and they looked at all these other studies and basically said,
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  Speaker 1: are the people who are doing mindset research following best
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  Speaker 1: practice best scientific practice to give us the right to
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  Speaker 1: give us results that we can actually rely on and
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  Speaker 1: replicate in other studies. And here's what they found. They
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  Speaker 1: examined sixty three studies. There were just under one hundred
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  Speaker 1: thousand participants across those sixty three studies, so we're looking
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  Speaker 1: at big, big studies, big numbers. And they found, and
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  Speaker 1: I'm reading this directly from the abstract. Now, quote major
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  Speaker 1: shortcomings in study design, analysis and reporting, and suggestions of
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  Speaker 1: researcher and publication bias. Authors with a financial incentive to
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  Speaker 1: report positive findings published significantly larger effects than authors without
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  Speaker 1: this incentive. Close quote. Now. I know it sounds like
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  Speaker 1: I'm geeking out fully on science and I'm talking about
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  Speaker 1: a whole lot of academic speak, but this really matters.
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  Speaker 2: Well, how do you replicate someone's mindset though you.
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  Speaker 1: Don't replicate a mindset, but you replicate the research. So
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  Speaker 1: the idea is, when when we write up a research report,
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  Speaker 1: we say, here's the scientific literature we're leaning on, here's
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  Speaker 1: the way that we've done the study, this is our method.
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  Speaker 1: We're going to look at the participants. We're going to
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  Speaker 1: look at the materials that are used, or the questionnaires
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  Speaker 1: that we used, or the experimental design. We're going to
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  Speaker 1: really make sure that the procedure is something that somebody
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  Speaker 1: else could do, because anyone can go and do a
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  Speaker 1: study and say here's what I found, but if no
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  Speaker 1: one can go and replicate that, you don't know how
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  Speaker 1: reliable that finding is. And psychology is really suffering from
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  Speaker 1: a crisis of relic ability right now. A whole lot
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  Speaker 1: of people have done shoddy research over the years, and
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  Speaker 1: we don't know as much as we thought we'd known
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  Speaker 1: because research can't be reproduced, and if it can't be reproduced,
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  Speaker 1: we've got a problem. So essentially, these researchers are looking
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  Speaker 1: at whether or not best practice has been followed. It
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  Speaker 1: hasn't been. What they found was very very small effects
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  Speaker 1: of mindset interventions. Now, mindset intervention is where we step
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  Speaker 1: in and we say we want to shift your mindset.
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  Speaker 1: We want you to no longer have a fixed mindset
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  Speaker 1: about your intelligence. We want you to have a growth
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  Speaker 1: mindset about your intelligence. We don't want you to think
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  Speaker 1: any longer that you're not very smart or you are
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  Speaker 1: very smart. What we want you to think instead is
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  Speaker 1: that your mind is malleable. It's pliable, it's mouldable. That's
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  Speaker 1: the idea. That's what they're trying to do.
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  Speaker 2: It's just a real tangent. But I'm listening to you.
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  Speaker 2: Why would you want to replicate other people's research. It's
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  Speaker 2: already been done to.
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  Speaker 1: Make sure that it's legitimate. Let me give you a
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  Speaker 1: really concrete example. Back in the fifties and sixties and
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  Speaker 1: even into the seventies, a whole lot of researchers started
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  Speaker 1: to ask big questions about how smoking affected physical health,
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  Speaker 1: and it took hundreds of replicated studies before government really
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  Speaker 1: started to listen and take action to protect people from
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  Speaker 1: the damage of smoking. One study wasn't enough to convince people.
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  Speaker 1: It took hundreds of studies before government said, hmm, there
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  Speaker 1: might be something here. In the same way, if we're
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  Speaker 1: going to run interventions in schools and people are going
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  Speaker 1: to pay thousands ten. I mean this is a multi multi,
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  Speaker 1: multi million, probably tens of millions of dollars tied up
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  Speaker 1: in the whole mindset intervention thing. If schools governments are
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  Speaker 1: spending our tax dollars on mindset interventions to help students
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  Speaker 1: who are struggling to improve their mindset and study better,
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  Speaker 1: we want to make sure that those mindset interventions are
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  Speaker 1: working because there's big dollars involved in it, and there's
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  Speaker 1: children's psychology, children's opportunity to learn. So what this research
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  Speaker 1: is really saying, here's the short version. Consistent with other
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  Speaker 1: researchers who have also done similar meter analysis, these two
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  Speaker 1: researchers conclude that the apparent effects of growth mindset interventions
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  Speaker 1: on academic achievement are likely attributable to an adequate study
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  Speaker 1: design and reporting flaws and bias.
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  Speaker 2: So what there isn't really such a thing as growth
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  Speaker 2: mindset is that what it's saying.
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  Speaker 1: It says that when we do a growth mindset intervention
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  Speaker 1: at a school level, it's not moving the needle. So
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  Speaker 1: it's not saying that growth mindset isn't real. What it
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  Speaker 1: is saying is when we step into a school environment,
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  Speaker 1: there are so many other factors that matter here that
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  Speaker 1: any significant findings have come from reporting flaws or an
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  Speaker 1: inadequate study, or some sort of bias on the part
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  Speaker 1: of the researchers. It's not actually doing what it's supposed
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  Speaker 1: to be doing, and therefore people who are investing in
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  Speaker 1: this may be paying a whole lot of money for
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  Speaker 1: something that's not going to do anything at all other
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  Speaker 1: than make people feel good that they think that they're
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  Speaker 1: doing something interesting. So when I look at this, I
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  Speaker 1: kind of think, well, is mindset research right? Big question
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  Speaker 1: marks over that, big question marks? Is it useful? I
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  Speaker 1: actually still think that it is. And what I mean
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  Speaker 1: by that is when somebody has a fixed mindset and
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  Speaker 1: they think they have lower ability, they just won't try.
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  Speaker 1: They won't put in any effort. Therefore they'll never make progress.
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  Speaker 1: Whereas if we have what's known as a growth mindset,
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  Speaker 1: the idea that effort brings results means that the person
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  Speaker 1: might actually have a go. Therefore, they're going to make
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  Speaker 1: more progress by trying than they will by not trying
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  Speaker 1: at all.
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  Speaker 2: So I guess in practical terms, for me, I had
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  Speaker 2: a very fixed mindset about my capacity to draw and
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  Speaker 2: paint right, and having gone through art school now for
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  Speaker 2: a few terms have opened up the possibility that maybe
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  Speaker 2: I could be good at it.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, Henry Fullard basically said this. He said, whether you
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  Speaker 1: think you can or you think you can't, you're probably right.
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  Speaker 1: And that's the very essence of what mindsets are all about.
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  Speaker 1: The research is not pointing to interventions working at a
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  Speaker 1: whole of school level. But what I think does happen
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  Speaker 1: is when we give people the opportunity to have a go,
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  Speaker 1: and if we can tap into their motivation by focusing
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  Speaker 1: on what we talked about in study one, we get
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  Speaker 1: results that matter, results that help, results that lead to
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  Speaker 1: progress and development and mastery.
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  Speaker 2: Well, I guess we'd better get onto study number three.
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  Speaker 2: Because you've talked so long.
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  Speaker 1: I'm going to blame you for sharing great stories and
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  Speaker 1: asking great questions because you did become intrigued. Now, at
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  Speaker 1: the start of the podcast we said we were going
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  Speaker 1: to talk about three studies. We are out of time.
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  Speaker 1: I don't think that it's fair that we try to
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  Speaker 1: dive into and layer another study on top of what
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  Speaker 1: we've already shared, and the two that we've shared, really
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  Speaker 1: they coexist quite nicely. So for those of you who
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  Speaker 1: would like to know how going to high achieving schools
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  Speaker 1: is potentially bad for your kids' health. Jump onto the
• 13:48
  Speaker 1: blog at happy families dot com dot IU. While you're there,
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  Speaker 1: you'll see the article that I'm referencing and all the
• 13:54
  Speaker 1: information about why sending your kids to high achieving schools
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  Speaker 1: could potentially be bad for their mental health. I will
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  Speaker 1: just share this one stat recent research review shows unrelenting
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  Speaker 1: pressures in high achieving schools is associated with anxiety and
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  Speaker 1: depression at a rate and astounding six to seven times
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  Speaker 1: higher than average for students that age. Fascinating stuff. So
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  Speaker 1: thank you so much for joining us for the Doctor's
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  Speaker 1: Desk Special Education edition. As we kick off twenty twenty
• 14:21
  Speaker 1: four with some high quality science tomorrow on the Happy
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  Speaker 1: Families Podcast, we are delighted and excited to bring you
• 14:28
  Speaker 1: our very first I'll do better tomorrow for the year.
• 14:30
  Speaker 1: The Happy Families Podcast is produced by Justin Roland for
• 14:33
  Speaker 1: Bridge Media. Craig Bruce is our executive producer. For more
• 14:36
  Speaker 1: information about making your family happy, we would love for
• 14:38
  Speaker 1: you to visit us at Happy families dot com dot AU.