Edu-Snippets

Worked examples, the restorative effects of nature, brain-training apps

Photo by Ivan Bajic (iStock Photo)

Highlights

• Providing students with worked examples of math problems can reduce math anxiety.

• Virtual simulations of being in nature do not have the same restorative impact as actually being in nature.

• Apps aimed at improving working memory do not appear to be effective, even over a long period of time.

Worked examples can reduce math anxiety

A recent experimental study suggests that giving students worked examples can help learners who have math anxiety. In the experiment, 280 fifth grade children were taught a math lesson on solving ratio word problems. Half of them were given access to worked examples while the other half were not. The study found that math anxious students in the worked example condition were less stressed, experienced less mind-wandering, and were better able to focus on the lesson. They also retained more of the lesson on a post-test administered three days later.

This study suggests that worked examples are a low-cost pedagogical intervention to promote math learning and reduce math anxiety.

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Direct exposure to nature can have a restorative effect on attentional resources. Viewing videos of nature apparently does not.

Studies suggest that exposure to nature can lower anxiety, reduce stress, and improve one’s sense of well-being. A new study (still in pre-publication) explored whether virtual nature simulations can have a similar restorative effect. In this experiment, researchers showed a video to 155 subjects. Each person watched a video that gave them a first-person experience of walking on either a forest path or on urban street. Post-video measurements of working memory capacity and executive attention failed to find any difference between the two groups. Watching the nature video failed to have any measurable benefit. These findings are consistent with previous studies that also found that virtual nature simulations did not replicate nature’s restorative effects.

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Brain training apps: Still no evidence of transferrable benefits

There exists a wealth of commercial “brain training” products on the market that promise they’ll make you smarter, keep you mentally agile, and prevent memory loss. All you need to do is download their app and “exercise your brain” each day by solving puzzles, completing word quizzes and engaging in various types of memory-related challenges. These apps claim their exercises will make you sharper by stimulating neural pathways and improving your mental fitness.

Do brain training apps work? Not exactly. Over time, they do make you better at doing the exercises in the app. However, there is no compelling evidence that these apps improve everyday cognitive performance.

A recent study on working memory training offers further evidence that the impact of brain training apps may be limited. In this experiment, researchers carried out a controlled study of 113 grade 9 students to see if it was possible to improve working memory over an extended period of time. The training consisted of 40 sessions spread over a two-year period. The study’s findings were largely consistent with previous research. With practice, students become better at completing the training exercises. However, this did not transfer to a general improvement in fluid intelligence¹ or the students’ cognitive abilities.

1. Fluid intelligence is the ability to reason, solve novel problems, and think abstractly.