22 posts · 3,568 views
Summary and analysis of cognitive research to help people gain knowledge about learning, thinking, and decision making, as well as how these vary across cultures and levels of expertise.
Winston Sieck
17 posts
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- May 16, 2013
- 10:38 AM
- 25 views
Discover Discovery Learning with Guidance
by Winston Sieck in Head Smart
In days of old, a good bit of learning was done by rote memorization. The lesson is given. Recite and repeat over and over until you’ve got it down. Rote learning still exists. It gets used in some places and for some topics. A radically different approach is discovery learning. With discovery learning, you work [...]... Read more »
Mayer, R. (2004) Should There Be a Three-Strikes Rule Against Pure Discovery Learning?. American Psychologist, 59(1), 14-19. DOI: 10.1037/0003-066X.59.1.14
- May 8, 2013
- 08:16 PM
- 70 views
5 Study Skills to Accelerate Your Learning
by Winston Sieck in Head Smart
You may have heard that we now live in something called a “knowledge economy.” One big implication is the premium put on the ability to ramp up your knowledge about new topics. Whatever else students are learning in school, they also need to practice study skills that can help them learn more quickly. Having a [...]... Read more »
Dunlosky, J., Rawson, K., Marsh, E., Nathan, M., & Willingham, D. (2013) Improving Students' Learning With Effective Learning Techniques: Promising Directions From Cognitive and Educational Psychology. Psychological Science in the Public Interest, 14(1), 4-58. DOI: 10.1177/1529100612453266
- April 29, 2013
- 09:39 PM
- 84 views
Spotting Fallacious Arguments
by Winston Sieck in Head Smart
Starting an argument with someone can be a great way to learn more about a topic. Arguments help us check our own thinking, come to terms with someone else’s reasoning, and occasionally even arrive at a shared understanding about what we believe to be true. Everyday arguments are often messy. The parties involved in the [...]... Read more »
Neuman, Y. (2003) Go ahead, prove that God does not exist! On high school students’ ability to deal with fallacious arguments. Learning and Instruction, 13(4), 367-380. DOI: 10.1016/S0959-4752(02)00011-7
- April 20, 2013
- 02:13 PM
- 112 views
What is Cognition and What Good is it?
by Winston Sieck in Head Smart
You never used to hear anyone say the word cognition. More and more, it seems to crop up in all kinds of places. I see cognition crop up in newspapers, magazines, and letters from my kid’s school. As someone who makes his living off of cognition, that’s comforting. But what is cognition really about? Is [...]... Read more »
Mayer, R. (2001) What Good is Educational Psychology? The Case of Cognition and Instruction. Educational Psychologist, 36(2), 83-88. DOI: 10.1207/S15326985EP3602_3
Miller, G. (2003) The cognitive revolution: a historical perspective. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 7(3), 141-144. DOI: 10.1016/S1364-6613(03)00029-9
- April 12, 2013
- 10:22 AM
- 113 views
Why Overconfidence Occurs and How to Overcome It
by Winston Sieck in Head Smart
Overconfidence happens to all of us. Ever have a plan that just couldn’t go wrong? And then you get a kick in the butt. Ever know that something must be true, only to find out later that you had it backwards? Overconfidence is when you think you are more likely to be right than you [...]... Read more »
Sieck, W., Merkle, E., & Van Zandt, T. (2007) Option fixation: A cognitive contributor to overconfidence. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 103(1), 68-83. DOI: 10.1016/j.obhdp.2006.11.001
- March 27, 2013
- 08:12 AM
- 132 views
Questioning Improves Your Learning if You Ask the Right Questions
by Louise Rasmussen in Head Smart
Questioning others is a great way to expose yourself to new ideas and perspectives. You can even use questioning strategies to figure out if others really know what they’re talking about. But other people aren’t always around. Sometimes you are all you’ve got. Luckily research shows that you can learn a great deal from questioning [...]... Read more »
Bugg, J., & McDaniel, M. (2012) Selective benefits of question self-generation and answering for remembering expository text. Journal of Educational Psychology, 104(4), 922-931. DOI: 10.1037/a0028661
- March 20, 2013
- 09:32 AM
- 367 views
Learning Styles: Appealing But Misleading
by Louise Rasmussen in Head Smart
Learning styles has become a popular term to use when we talk about the idea that people have different ways of learning. The concept of learning styles has a lot of personal and political appeal. It comes in handy when we want to explain why we didn’t learn much from a class. “The teacher just [...]... Read more »
Pashler, H., McDaniel, M., Rohrer, D., & Bjork, R. (2009) Learning Styles: Concepts and Evidence. Psychological Science in the Public Interest, 9(3), 105-119. DOI: 10.1111/j.1539-6053.2009.01038.x
- March 13, 2013
- 10:47 PM
- 150 views
Intelligence: What it Means to You
by Winston Sieck in Head Smart
What does intelligence mean to you? Take a moment to really think about that. Now, ask yourself another question – why do you think that? Where did your ideas about the nature of intelligence really come from? There are two main ways that people think about intelligence. Perhaps the most common view is that intelligence [...]... Read more »
Burke, L., & Williams, J. (2012) The impact of a thinking skills intervention on children's concepts of intelligence. Thinking Skills and Creativity, 7(3), 145-152. DOI: 10.1016/j.tsc.2012.01.001
- March 5, 2013
- 09:15 PM
- 161 views
Confirmation Bias: 3 Effective (and 3 Ineffective) Cures
by Louise Rasmussen in Head Smart
Confirmation bias is a fancy way of describing our human inclination to see what we want to see. In other words, we like to look for and interpret information in ways that confirm our expectations. The language makes it sound … Continue reading →... Read more »
Mynatt, C., Doherty, M., & Tweney, R. (1977) Confirmation bias in a simulated research environment: An experimental study of scientific inference. Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, 29(1), 85-95. DOI: 10.1080/00335557743000053
Mynatt, C., Doherty, M., & Tweney, R. (1978) Consequences of confirmation and disconfirmation in a simulated research environment. Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, 30(3), 395-406. DOI: 10.1080/00335557843000007
- February 28, 2013
- 04:28 PM
- 188 views
Cognitive Skills in the Internet Era
by Winston Sieck in Head Smart
Learning has gotten complicated. We often need to answer challenging technical and scientific questions to get by in our everyday life. The internet has become the default means to get those answers. Yet learning from the web is fraught with … Continue reading →... Read more »
Mason, L., Ariasi, N., & Boldrin, A. (2011) Epistemic beliefs in action: Spontaneous reflections about knowledge and knowing during online information searching and their influence on learning. Learning and Instruction, 21(1), 137-151. DOI: 10.1016/j.learninstruc.2010.01.001
- February 20, 2013
- 09:11 PM
- 113 views
In Praise of (the Right Kind of) Praise
by Winston Sieck in Head Smart
Sure, you praise your kids. They look at you with beaming little faces. Such a warm feeling, if only for a moment. Is that all there is to praise? What’s simmering in the brain behind those sparkling eyes? It may … Continue reading →... Read more »
Gunderson, E., Gripshover, S., Romero, C., Dweck, C., Goldin-Meadow, S., & Levine, S. (2013) Parent Praise to 1- to 3-Year-Olds Predicts Children's Motivational Frameworks 5 Years Later. Child Development. DOI: 10.1111/cdev.12064
- February 13, 2013
- 08:19 PM
- 201 views
Metacognition is not like Metaphysics
by Winston Sieck in Head Smart
When someone bravely raises metaphysics at a gathering, autonomic responses take over. Some start to salivate, whereas others roll their eyes. The very few people who have attempted to bring up “metacognition” in polite conversation have also met with an … Continue reading →... Read more »
Flavell, J. (1979) Metacognition and cognitive monitoring: A new area of cognitive-developmental inquiry. American Psychologist, 34(10), 906-911. DOI: 10.1037//0003-066X.34.10.906
Kuhn, D. (2000) Metacognitive Development. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 9(5), 178-181. DOI: 10.1111/1467-8721.00088
- February 13, 2013
- 08:19 PM
- 42 views
Metacognition is Good to Know
by Winston Sieck in Head Smart
The very few people who have attempted to bring up “metacognition” in polite conversation have mostly been met with uncontrolled reactions. Eyes glaze over and mouths get dry. Vague associations with metaphysics and mysticism might be made. The quick-witted excuse themselves to pour another drink. Is this “flight” reaction well-tuned? Should you be anticipating a [...]... Read more »
Flavell, J. (1979) Metacognition and cognitive monitoring: A new area of cognitive-developmental inquiry. American Psychologist, 34(10), 906-911. DOI: 10.1037//0003-066X.34.10.906
Kuhn, D. (2000) Metacognitive Development. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 9(5), 178-181. DOI: 10.1111/1467-8721.00088
- February 4, 2013
- 11:35 PM
- 208 views
Respect for Arab Crowds
by Winston Sieck in Head Smart
Direct displays of respect can reduce conflict in Arab protests, where a premium is placed on honor. Such displays enable people in potentially volatile crowd situations to accrue honor while avoiding risks associated with violent confrontation. These conclusions are based … Continue reading →... Read more »
Sieck, W., Smith, J., Grome, A., Veinott, E., & Mueller, S. (2013) Violent and peaceful crowd reactions in the Middle East: cultural experiences and expectations. Behavioral Sciences of Terrorism and Political Aggression, 5(1), 20-44. DOI: 10.1080/19434472.2011.616668
- January 28, 2013
- 04:51 PM
- 196 views
Gain Cognitive Flexibility By Seeking Experiences that Test Your Morals
by Louise Rasmussen in Head Smart
A family eats their dog after it has been run over by a car. Is this behavior right or wrong? Our lives are filled with moral questions.... Read more »
Endicott, L., Bock, T., & Narvaez, D. (2003) Moral reasoning, intercultural development, and multicultural experiences: relations and cognitive underpinnings. International Journal of Intercultural Relations, 27(4), 403-419. DOI: 10.1016/S0147-1767(03)00030-0
- January 22, 2013
- 08:03 PM
- 181 views
Self-Explanation: A Good Reading Strategy for Bad Texts (& Good)
by Winston Sieck in Head Smart
One of the important skills we need in our increasingly technology driven world is the ability to learn from hard-to-understand text. Maybe you’re trying to grasp a biology textbook chapter on sexual reproduction. Or perhaps you’re reading articles on the … Continue reading →... Read more »
Chi, M. (1994) Eliciting self-explanations improves understanding,. Cognitive Science, 18(3), 439-477. DOI: 10.1016/0364-0213(94)90016-7
Ozuru, Y., Briner, S., Best, R., & McNamara, D. (2010) Contributions of Self-Explanation to Comprehension of High- and Low-Cohesion Texts. Discourse Processes, 47(8), 641-667. DOI: 10.1080/01638531003628809
- January 16, 2013
- 01:58 PM
- 201 views
Learning about Learning: Take Charge of Your Learning
by Winston Sieck in Head Smart
Do you feel in charge of your own learning? Do you learn well regardless of how good or bad the instructor is, or even if there isn’t one at all? With the phenomenal wealth of information available today, we have … Continue reading →... Read more »
Pintrich, P. (2004) A Conceptual Framework for Assessing Motivation and Self-Regulated Learning in College Students. Educational Psychology Review, 16(4), 385-407. DOI: 10.1007/s10648-004-0006-x
- January 8, 2013
- 07:46 PM
- 208 views
Critical Thinking in Decision Making
by Winston Sieck in Head Smart
Critical thinking is often talked about as a stand-alone activity. Like some other individual activities, thinking critically may just feel good. Yet, critical thinking seems most useful when it aids other cognitive processes, such as applying critical thinking in decision … Continue reading →... Read more »
Helsdingen, A., van Gog, T., & van Merriënboer, J. (2011) The effects of practice schedule and critical thinking prompts on learning and transfer of a complex judgment task. Journal of Educational Psychology, 103(2), 383-398. DOI: 10.1037/a0022370
- December 31, 2012
- 04:18 PM
- 243 views
Critical Thinking Skills: What are They and How Do I Get Them?
by Winston Sieck in Head Smart
Critical thinking is often touted as a superior, desirable way to go about resolving the issues one faces. But what is critical thinking, really? How is it done? Can anyone do it, or are Spock-like mental abilities required? Critical thinking … Continue reading →... Read more »
Angeli, C., & Valanides, N. (2009) Instructional effects on critical thinking: Performance on ill-defined issues. Learning and Instruction, 19(4), 322-334. DOI: 10.1016/j.learninstruc.2008.06.010
- December 17, 2012
- 04:08 PM
- 144 views
How Can You Tell if Your Spouse (or Service Professional) Knows What They’re Talking About?
by Louise Rasmussen in Head Smart
Does your spouse really know how the dishwasher works or are they just trying to fake it? Being able to check for understanding…can save you time and money. Is it worth it to have your husband try his luck as... Read more »
Graesser, A., & Olde, B. (2003) How does one know whether a person understands a device? The quality of the questions the person asks when the device breaks down. Journal of Educational Psychology, 95(3), 524-536. DOI: 10.1037/0022-0663.95.3.524
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