Quick Hits
Daily brief research updates from the cognitive sciences

There has been a long-standing debate and discussion in learning contexts for what is the best way to form groups for optimal learning when there are different abilities in those groups.
The two classic strategies are one, put those of similar ability together so that everyone can operate at a similar level and hopefully benefit from more targeted learning. And two, put differing abilities together so that the peers can also benefit from each other and those with stronger ability can also pull along the weaker ones.

This applies to many scenarios, from sports training, to educational contexts, and even in business.

However different research has pointed to different things – for example in peer learning differences, if not too large seem to be beneficial. But if differences are too large, it becomes detrimental. So, to answer this question enter mathematicians from the University of Rochester.

They analysed this using mathematical principles which included multiple assumptions such as: multiple groups would be formed; the individuals involved would have different skill levels; an optimal teaching environment would be one in which a student is taught at a level that matches his or her skill level; and the optimal grouping system would maximize the collective benefit for all students.

They then analysed three grouping scenarios. Tiered grouping according to ability, balanced grouping of different abilities, and random groupings.

And what were the results?

The results showed that according to this mathematical model tiered-grouping, grouping according to ability was best.

It should be noted that this is, as we would expect, best for the group on average. For an individual however, it might not be best. For example, an individual might benefit more from being in a group of people with higher ability (probably not too much higher).

But for the moment, though I am sure the debate will continue, mathematics shows that grouping people into similar ability groups is best for learning…on average.

Andy Habermacher

Andy is author of leading brains Review, Neuroleadership, and multiple other books. He has been intensively involved in writing and research into neuroleadership and is considered one of Europe’s leading experts. He is also a well-known public speaker, speaking on the brain and human behaviour.

Andy is also a masters athlete (middle distance running) and competes regularly at international competitions (and holds a few national records in his age category).

twitter / LinkedIn

References

Peter D. Wiens, Christine Zizzi, Chad Heatwole.
Instructional Grouping Theory: Optimizing Classrooms and the Placement of Ranked Students.
Educational Practice and Theory, 2022; 44 (1): 5
DOI: 10.7459/ept/44.1.02

More Quick Hits

Quick Hits
Daily brief research updates from the cognitive sciences

I am sure we all know that feeling of getting more irritable when temperatures rise. Well, now we have some fascinating research to show that that irascibility is also measurable in the amount of hate speech online.

We may assume that hate speech is simply the language of a number of opinionated and disagreeable folk. Sure, it is, but this shows that, seemingly, local temperatures magnify this effect.

So, what was this fascinating study?

This was conducted by Annika Stechemesser,  et al. of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research by analysing over 4 billion tweets in the US using AI algorithms.  From this they identified about 75 million English phrased hate tweets. They were then mapped to local temperatures and lo and behold a correlation was found.

What they found is that there is feel good window which corresponds to the minimum of hate tweets. That feel good window is between 12 and 21°C with the absolute minimum between 15 and 18°C. Temperatures either above or below, interestingly, led to an increase in hate tweets. Temperatures above 30°C are consistently linked to an increase in hate tweets across climate zones and socioeconomic differences including income, religious beliefs, or political preferences.

This is fascinating because it shows that local environmental conditions also impact hate behaviour – previously only considered as an attitude, personality, or belief problem. It also shows that changing climate dynamics with a global increase in extreme weather will likely also drive an increase in bad behaviour online and on social media.

Note also that this is not US specific with the same group of researchers also finding similar patterns in Europe.

This is important to note because this behaviour will likely occur in all social situations, in business and in society. We seem to have an optimal window and out of this things get, well, heated.

Andy Habermacher

Andy is author of leading brains Review, Neuroleadership, and multiple other books. He has been intensively involved in writing and research into neuroleadership and is considered one of Europe’s leading experts. He is also a well-known public speaker, speaking on the brain and human behaviour.

Andy is also a masters athlete (middle distance running) and competes regularly at international competitions (and holds a few national records in his age category).

twitter / LinkedIn

References

Annika Stechemesser, Anders Levermann, Leonie Wenz. 
Temperature impacts on hate speech online: evidence from 4 billion geolocated tweets from the USA. 
The Lancet Planetary Health, 2022; 6 (9): e714
DOI: 10.1016/S2542-5196(22)00173-5

A Stechemesser, L Wenz, M Kotz, A Levermann. 
Strong increase of racist tweets outside of climate comfort zone in Europe. 
Environmental Research Letters, 2021; 16 (11): 114001
DOI: 10.1088/1748-9326/ac28b3

More Quick Hits

Quick Hits
Daily brief research updates from the cognitive sciences

Many years ago I first heard the advice of “Don’t watch the news if you want to be happy”. The reason is that news is more often than not negative – I have written about this negativity bias previously – as the saying goes in news circles “if it bleeds, it leads”.

So, avoiding this dose of negativity is probably a good thing. However, since I first heard this decades ago the world has changed with access to news ever more present – it is not just on the television, it is on every device that we carry and at every minute throughout the day whether through formal news websites or through social media applications. Now it seems much harder than ever to avoid the negativity of the news.

But is this really negative?

McGaughlin et al. have just published a study which they conducted with 1’100 US adults. The found that about 16.5% had problematic news consumption. This is when the desire to follow the news becomes similar to addiction with constant checking of the news almost 24 hours a day and being pulled into a constant cycle of trying to relieve one’s anxiety by checking the news but then getting further pulled in.
It might seem obvious that this is not a good place to be mentally but is this what they found?

They did indeed. With 73.6% of those with problematic news consumption reported experiencing mental ill-being “quite a bit” or “very much”. This is compared to only 8% of other participants.

But on top of this 61% those with problematic news consumption also reported physical ill-being “quite a bit” or “very much” in comparison to only 6.1% of other participants.

Those are quite dramatic figures and the surprising outcome is that this is correlated so strongly to physical as well as mental well-being.
This shows that that bit of sage advice of avoiding the news seems to be very good advice but more than that avoiding the blackhole of continuous news consumption.

Unfortunately, there seems to be no easy way out of this. 24-hour news consumption is possible and very easy. Maybe a more positive reporting would at least help. I’m not holding my breath and I’ll stick to my general news avoidance strategy (while keeping myself informed).

Andy Habermacher

Andy is author of leading brains Review, Neuroleadership, and multiple other books. He has been intensively involved in writing and research into neuroleadership and is considered one of Europe’s leading experts. He is also a well-known public speaker, speaking on the brain and human behaviour.

Andy is also a masters athlete (middle distance running) and competes regularly at international competitions (and holds a few national records in his age category).

twitter / LinkedIn

Reference

Bryan McLaughlin, Melissa R. Gotlieb, Devin J. Mills. 
Caught in a Dangerous World: Problematic News Consumption and Its Relationship to Mental and Physical Ill-Being. 
Health Communication, 2022; 1
DOI: 10.1080/10410236.2022.2106086

More Quick Hits