Gender Differences in the Brain--Really Not a Big Surprise, Is It?

Views of the brains of men and women

Brain research that has a bottom line ought to offer insights into gender differences in teaching and learning. Consider this:

Men and women do think differently, at least where the anatomy of the brain is concerned, according to a new study.

The brain is made primarily of two different types of tissue, called gray matter and white matter. This new research reveals that men think more with their gray matter, and women think more with white. Researchers stressed that just because the two sexes think differently, this does not affect intellectual performance.

Psychology professor Richard Haier of the University of California, Irvine led the research along with colleagues from the University of New Mexico. Their findings show that in general, men have nearly 6.5 times the amount of gray matter related to general intelligence compared with women, whereas women have nearly 10 times the amount of white matter related to intelligence compared to men.

It wouldn't surprise most observant, aware people that men and women think differently, but now there's research to prove it. So far, so good, but if intellectual performance is not affected by differences in thinking then what does it matter?

The results from this study may help explain why men and women excel at different types of tasks, said co-author and neuropsychologist Rex Jung of the University of New Mexico. For example, men tend to do better with tasks requiring more localized processing, such as mathematics, Jung said, while women are better at integrating and assimilating information from distributed gray-matter regions of the brain, which aids language skills.

Wait a minute. Paraphrasing the results, the study tells us that men do better in math and women in languages. Is that what I just read? What else do I need to know?

Scientists find it very interesting that while men and women use two very different activity centers and neurological pathways, men and women perform equally well on broad measures of cognitive ability, such as intelligence tests.

Here's what I think I know and ought to keep in mind in teaching economics. First, male and female students should perform equally well in the course. However, when math is involved, female students will not perform as well as males. When language is involved the males will have more difficulties.

The question remains is there anything a conscientious instructor can do about these research findings to help the females get through the math in an economics class and help the males deal with the fine points of language. Until the answer is provided, perhaps by additional research, the best an economics instructor can do is try to explain concepts as clearly as possible and provide an array of learning opportunities that engage the white matter brain cells and the gray matter brain cells.

Economics--A Journey of the Heart as Well as the Mind?

Students want their universities to help them answer the question, "What's my life's purpose?" Are public universities equipped to do that? More specifically, can economics classes help students meet this need?

First, let's be specific. UCLA surveyed 112,000 students on 236 campuses and found that 67 percent of first-year students believe it is essential or very important that their school help develop their personal values. The survey also found that 48 percent of them would like their school to encourage the personal expression of their spirituality.

No one should interpret these survey results as suggesting that students want to be preached to. Furthermore, the survey tells us that it's their own "personal values" that students feel need further development, not the values of organized religion.

Economics as it is presented in the typical Economics 101 textbook would appear to be totally disconnected to spiritual needs. At first glance, it's hard to inject an interpretation of spirituality into topics such as demand and supply, monopoly and antitrust, and money and inflation. Furthermore, instructors might find themselves feeling a wee bit uncomfortable trying to supply spiritual interpretations or insights. But, let's take a second look and see if these thoughts hold up under scrutiny.

An introductory economics class is a good place to explore career choices, as part of a discussion of labor economics. Typically, that exploration will involve looking at markets for different occupations and observing how demand and supply influence earnings. However, everyone recognizes that intangibles play a huge role in occupational choice. Might there not be a spiritual aspect to the choice of teaching as a career, for example? In fact, wouldn't a consideration of the intangibles provide a worthwhile relaxation of the ceteris paribus clause?

Business ethics opens a Pandora's box of opportunities for discussing personal values. It's hard to picture an economics class so abstract and theoretical that current corporate scandals are ignored. Thus, ethical issues of business as part of the study of the firm can easily be brought into Economics 101.

If students demand help with issues relating to personal values, shouldn't instructors make the effort to supply a framework grounded in economic principles that will help them?

Look and Listen: Brain Struggles to do Both

I left the title of this post exactly as it appears on the Live Science web site. It's shocking to me to think that my brain and your brain struggle to look and listen at the same time. It reminds me of the old joke about not being able to walk and chew gum at the same time, but this story is no joke.

"Our research helps explain why talking on a cell phone can impair driving performance, even when the driver is using a hands-free device," said Steven Yantis, a Johns Hopkins University psychologist. "Directing attention to listening effectively 'turns down the volume' on input to the visual parts of the brain."

"By advancing our understanding of the connection between mind, brain and behavior, this research may help in the design of complex devices – such as airliner cockpits – and may help in the diagnosis and treatment of neurological disorders such as ADHD or schizophrenia," Yantis said.

I see another application of this research, which is described in the link to this post, that goes beyond driving with cell phone in hand or the design of cockpits. Think about the student sitting in a lecture hall on a college campus. The instructor reveals a complicated graph of profit maximization, and launches into a lecture on the subject at the same time. The poor student sits there trying to look and listen at the same time. What's the brain doing? Struggling to cope.

Solution to the problem? I'm not a scientist so I can't say for sure. If I wanted to be a smart aleck, I might suggest pausing for a moment of silent prayer. But since prayer is illegal in the schools, maybe I'll just suggest pausing for a moment of silence. Let the students' brains take in information through the eyes (the looking part), before I start talking and they have to start listening.

General principle: If people struggle to do more than one thing at time because the brain has difficulty coping, then stop doing more than one thing at a time. No wonder people feel so drained after a hard day of multitasking at work. One thing at a time, and first things first. Maybe that's the way to a more effective day at work and more effective learning in the classroom. At least, that's what this research suggests to me. What do you think?

An Award to Honolulu Community College for the Teaching Tips Index

The Royal Economics Academy excellence award

There's a wealth of links to faculty development resources that have been gathered on this page. Check it out. Thanks, Honolulu Community College.

Gardner's Multiple Intelligences--Implications for Teaching and Learning

Thanks to Professor Lamp, I have a list of Howard Gardner's 7 intelligences. Professor Lamp discusses these from the perspective of gifted and talented children. I've taken a stab at laying out the perspective from the podium in an Economics 101 class.

1. Linguistic
Students with this intelligence are probably majoring in English or foreign languages. They might be bloggers, if they have a technological bent. They enjoy writing, reading, telling stories or doing crossword puzzles. I've created economics crossword puzzles for my classes to help linguistic learners master the subject. I'm also always interspersing true stories with technical material.

2. Logical-Mathematical
These are the math, science, and economics majors. Learners with lots of logical intelligence are interested in patterns, categories and relationships. They are drawn to arithmetic problems, strategy games and experiments. There are lots of these kinds of learning resources in course study guides provided with economics texts. Assigning study guide exercises would help these students to learn.

3. Bodily-Kinesthetic
Dance and kinesiology are likely to be the majors of choice for these learners, who process knowledge through bodily sensations. They could also be majoring in art or sculpture. They are often athletic, dancers, or good at crafts and other hands-on activities. In economics, students whose primary intelligence is kinesthetic will be at a disadvantage relative to other learners.

4. Spatial
I presume that art and sculpture majors would possess this intelligence in large amounts. These learners think in images and pictures. They may be fascinated with mazes or jigsaw puzzles, or spend free time drawing, daydreaming, or building models. This is a good intelligence for engineering, architecture, and economics majors to possess, too. Graphing assignments in economics would help these students learn.

5. Musical
I hope that music majors possess a heaping quantity of this intelligence. These learners are often discriminating listeners. I would imagine that lectures and sound files posted on a course web site would help them learn economics.

6. Interpersonal
Learners who are leaders, who are good at communicating and who seem to understand others' feelings and motives possess interpersonal intelligence. Group projects in economics allow learners with interpersonal intelligence to excel.

7. Intrapersonal
These people may be shy. They are very aware of their own feelings and are self-motivated. Appealing to that sense of self motivation may be the key to increasing the learning of economics with these students.

Too bad there's no easy way to determine the primary intelligence of each student in an Economics 101 class. What I'm left with is preparing course materials that appeal to a variety of intelligences. Since there is debate about the validity of the multiple intelligences theory, here's a little example of how a computer programmer uses several intelligences:

Gardner (1983) proposes that there are seven forms of intelligence: linguistic, musical, logical-mathematical, spatial, bodily-kinesthetic, intrapersonal (e.g., insight, metacognition), and interpersonal (e.g., social skills). As a computer programmer, I use a number of these different kinds of intelligence on a regular basis. For example, writing a Pascal program requires extensive use of logical-mathematical intelligence. Choosing recognizable variable names requires linguistic intelligence. Debugging requires intrapersonal intelligence in order to arrive at that, "Ah, ha!" experience of recognizing the problem that needs to be fixed. Finally, when I run into an especially difficult problem, interpersonal intelligence is required to get help.

QuickTake: Intelligence--What is It?

I'm just an economics instructor trying to teach basic economic concepts to college freshman. However, research into the psychology of learning is sometimes as useful to me as knowledge about the latest economic research. Take a look at the page of resources on intelligence by clicking on the link in this post.

Piaget's Final Stage of Development and The Economic Way of Thinking

From The Dictionary of Cognitive Science comes this statement of Piaget's final stage of development:

Formal Operations (11/12 to adult)
Children who attain the formal operation stage are capable of thinking logically and abstractly. They can also reason theoretically. Piaget considered this the ultimate stage of development, and stated that although the children would still have to revise their knowledge base, their way of thinking was as powerful as it would get.

In university-level introductory economics classes, "the economic way of thinking" is usually stressed. That emphasis fits right in with Piaget's Formal Operations stage of development. The problem is that not every child reaches this final stage of development. At least, that's what psychologists think today. The challenge in teaching economics is to help learners achieve that final stage in cognitive development, if they're not already there.

How can that be done? Several thoughts occur to me:

• Limit the quantity of content and emphasize topics that involve theoretical reasoning.
• Explicitly show the steps in logical arguments.
• Provide practice exercises that involve theorizing and abstraction.
• Build new knowledge around what learners already know.

The economic way of thinking seems obvious to instructors, but often is not obvious to students. Perhaps that's the first step to wisdom in the teaching of economics.

QuickTake: How Does Knowledge Grow?

Jean Piaget (1896-1980) is a legend in teaching and learning circles. The question at the core of his research was, "How does knowledge grow?"

His answer is that the growth of knowledge is a progressive construction of logically embedded structures superseding one another by a process of inclusion of lower less powerful logical means into higher and more powerful ones up to adulthood. Therefore, children's logic and modes of thinking are initially entirely different from those of adults.

Piaget's oeuvre is known all over the world and is still an inspiration in fields like psychology, sociology, education, epistemology, economics and law as witnessed in the annual catalogues of the Jean Piaget Archives.

Notice that 25 years after his death Piaget is still an inspiration in diverse fields, including economics. While Piaget was concerned with exploring how children learn, Malcolm Knowles focused on adult learning. Since college students are often not quite adults and certainly not children anymore, the question about how their knowledge grows has always been an issue in my mind. Is Piaget's pedagogy or Knowles' andragogy more relevant to excellence in college teaching? Future posts will explore the issue.

QuickTake: EconomicsAmerica National Standards

The 20 national standards in K-12 economic education are listed on the linked page. In future posts I'll be commenting on the standards, and the related online lessons that accompany them, from a higher ed perspective. For now I'll just say that if students really met the standards it would make the job of Economics 101 instructors much easier.

The Economics of Online Surveys

I posted a companion piece to this post on Socrates Tech a few minutes ago. Researchers in pyschology are finding that people will go online to take surveys, which provides them with a richer data base than the traditional method of surveying undergraduate students.

Some sites offer small prizes to people who take part, or promise to post the results of the research. But more often than not, there is no reward.

"I think there are a lot of people who are just generally interested in filling out surveys - probably the same people who would do all the Cosmo surveys sitting in doctors' rooms," says Paula Saunders, who is running a survey on workplace bullying (www.psy.unsw.edu.au/BullyingSurvey) as part of her PhD research at the University of NSW.

Researchers like the swing to online surveying because it takes them to a global audience at a low cost. It seems to put the subjects more at ease: it is far easier to share secrets, intimacies, fears and embarrassments behind the anonymity of their computer screen than face-to-face with a research assistant.

"When I advertised for face-to-face participants, I had a great deal of reluctance. I had people phone and say they are interested, but quite often they will give me false names after talking to me six times trying to get a feel for whether or not they can trust me," says Saunders. "It's been a huge struggle. With this, I think people feel more comfortable expressing themselves because they know I don't know who they are and I won't be able to track them."

David Mallard, a psychology lecturer at Charles Sturt University in Bathurst, has used online surveys for research since 2002, including one no longer online that flashed up a series of photos re-enacting a mugging. A week after watching the crime onscreen, folks who took part were asked to return to the site to view mug shots to see if they could correctly identify the perpetrator and detail some other aspects of what they had witnessed.

The followup for economists is obvious. If the psychology faculty are finding that online surveys provide richer, more economically acquired data, there's no reason it can't be done by economists.