Comment on Target Article by Jared Bartels—What if Ideology is Rather Just Being Lazy?

Abstract

In this reply to the article “Indoctrination in Introduction to Psychology” by Jared M. Bartels, true to Occam's razor, the argument is made that there is maybe an easier explanation for the mistakes often found in textbooks: laziness. Different examples are presented to make this argument.

It could be regarded as an understatement to say that the past 15 years have been a period of crisis for the science of psychology. Infamous fraud cases such as Diederik Stapel or Brian Wansink, together with the replication crisis, have forced scientists to step up their game (Ritchie, 2020). Maybe it is true that crisis can mean growth, but did the introductory textbooks follow suit?

We have known for a long time that many of Piaget's insights are incorrect and that much of his research was not on level (De Bruyckere et al., 2022). Still, many textbook pages are filled with his work and often not only describe his insights as an example of past history.

As mentioned in the article, I’ve been one of the researchers who have written critically about the multiple intelligences theory by Howard Gardner and how this theory is being applied in education (De Bruyckere et al., 2015). The irony is that Gardner himself already complained about the misapplication of his theory in the 90s of the previous century (Checkley, 1997), describing it shouldn’t be used as a learning styles theory. Furthermore, he recently stated that his theory is outdated (Gardner, 2016). But still, the theory seems to remain popular.

A 2016 report by the National Council on Teacher Quality showed a depressing picture of US teacher training textbooks and course manuals. While the learning styles myth was uncritically discussed in most of the checked material, six evidence-informed approaches, such as “Pairing graphics with words” or “Distributing practice,” were never fully discussed. The report states: “None of the textbooks used in the sample accurately describes all six fundamental instructional strategies. At most, only two of the six strategies are covered in any particular text,” and even worse: “When textbooks do mention the strategies (allowing for a broad range of terminology and descriptions), the discussion can be as brief as 1–2 sentences in a text that is typically several hundred pages in length.” (Pomerance et al., 2016, p. VII). A replication study in The Netherlands showed similar results (Surma et al., 2018). A follow-up study showed that the logical consequence of this is that “…misconceptions about effective study strategies are widespread by novice teachers and suggests that they are unaware of several specific strategies that could benefit student learning and retention.” (Surma et al., 2022)

One could think that this is proof of the thesis that has been put forward in the article that there is an ideological bias. Wrong or misapplied theories, such as learning styles or multiple intelligences, could be considered a more progressive way of education. They take the pupil or student as starting point, adapting instruction to their individual needs. The six evidence-informed methods can be described as a more teacher-centered, instruction-based approach, a view that is often regarded as more traditional or old-fashioned (Reese, 2001).

This could be the case, but I think there is another element to be taken into account. True to Occam's razor—the problem-solving principle that recommends searching for explanations constructed with the smallest possible set of elements—a more straightforward reason could also play at least an important role to explain why these wrong or misapplied theories remain being spread: laziness. When Pomerance et al. (2016) examined the sources used in textbooks, they found that the referenced studies were seldom from seminal studies cited in the IES practice guide. More often, the works being referenced were secondary sources rather than primary studies (Pomerance et al., 2016).

When we worked on our books about both urban myths about learning and education (De Bruyckere et al., 2015, 2019) and a current overview of relevant psychological insights for teachers (De Bruyckere et al., 2022), we were surprised to see how a lot of the original insights had become corrupted over time. When reading the original texts we often saw essential differences with the current common knowledge. I want to share a couple of examples.

One should read the original version of Pygmalion in the Classroom by Rosenthal and Jacobson (1968) to discover that, among other issues, the effect they described was not present in all grades. Even better is to check the replications afterward, showing the effect to be relatively small and disappearing over time (Jussim & Harber, 2005). Sometimes theories start having a whole life on their own, even to the dismay of the original authors, for example, the Mehrabian Myth (Atkinson, 2005; Yaffe, 2011), the hierarchy of needs depicted as a pyramid (Bridgman et al., 2019) or the 10,000-hours rule made famous by Malcolm Gladwell, incorrectly citing the work by Anders Ericsson (Ericsson & Pool, 2016).

While in the first example of Pygmalion in the Classroom, one could argue that an ideological bias can be suggested, in the other examples (Mehrabian, Maslow and the 10,000-hours rule) I want to argue that there are possibly easier explanations, also because with Mehrabian and the 10,000-hours rule, an ideological bias seems to be less clear. Sometimes I suspect that people don’t want the truth to get in the way of a good story or insight, something that sounds intuitively right (e.g., learning styles) or that sounds as an easy solution. Mehrabian himself saw a lack of knowledge as a possible explanation (Atkinson, 2005), which could also be the case for the 10,000-hours rule. Or people just copy wrong ideas without reading the original sources, what probably has happened often in all four cases, bringing me back to the argument again of laziness that I already mentioned, based on the work by Pomerance et al. (2016). And even worse, when a lot of lazy people repeat this incorrect idea, the myth becomes stronger and more widespread (Weaver et al., 2007). An argument pro the thesis put forward in the article that ideology could play a role is what is called the confirmation bias, the tendency favor information that confirms one's prior beliefs or values, but as aforementioned this bias is less clear in the examples I’ve mentioned in this reply. The 10,000-hours rule could even be regarded as rooted in the ideological opposite of the learning styles myth. While the latter is heavily rooted in a “nature” point of view, Ericsson's work on deliberate practice that inspired Malcolm Gladwell favored a more nurture point of view.

Maybe crisis can indeed mean growth, but if this is true I do think that in this case, we can use some more crisis.