Education

Scientific articles about climate change were cited more frequently if they used a more narrative style.

PLOS ONE

Louder background noise (e.g. two people talking) made it more difficult for toddlers to learn new words.

Students with a similar personality to their teacher were rated higher on overall math and reading skills. However, this did not affect assessments of their specific skills in these subjects.

In a group of Dutch children, longer school days with more reading instruction improved reading ability without leading to behavioral problems.

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences

Education

Spacing out training is more effective than cramming for remembering information. Cramming makes the information feel familiar, which leads to overestimates of learning.

Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) are more likely to be used by people living in affluent and well-educated areas, suggesting that they may not be helping to democratize education.

Science

Education

"Math story time," in which parents and first-graders used an iPad app to read numerical story problems, significantly increased students' scores in math across the school year.

Science

People placed in ethnically diverse groups estimated stock prices more accurately than people placed in ethnically homogenous groups.

Using humor in an educational setting (e.g., demonstrating a concept using a humorous example) can help create a positive learning environment, improving attention and memory recall.

Communication Education

Education

Modafinil, typically prescribed for sleep disorders, and unofficially used by some to improve memory, and attention, did not appear to have this effect on healthy volunteers, who in fact responded slower, without improving accuracy, to a language-dependent task.

PLOS ONE