[Peers] Some curious social-psych research, with applications to OpenHatch, Nell, and...?

[Michael Stone]

On Sun, Mar 18, 2012 at 09:12:11PM -0400, Michael Stone wrote:
>Asheesh, Karen, (and various other friends interested in learning... :-)
>
>If you haven't already done so, you folks should think about finding yourselves
>copies of Carol S. Dweck's book: "Self-theories: their role in motivation,
>personality, and development" [1,2].
>
>The punch-lines that I see for OH [3,4], Nell [5], and friends include:
>
>  a) When faced with challenging problems, some people become frustrated,
>     bored, or distracted while others become patient, focused, or excited.
>
>  b) Variation in (a) can be predicted by measuring the subjects' agreement
>     with statements about the malleability and nature of "intelligence"
>     or by measuring preferences for learning goals vs.  performance goals,
>     e.g., via the following measure, taken from the book's appendix:
>
>       Task-choice Goal Measure: (suitable for ages 10 and older)
>
>       Sample instruction:
>
>         "We have different kinds of problems here for you to choose from.
>         There is no right answer -- different students make different choices.
>         Just put a check in front of your choice."
>
>       Question:
>
>         I would like to work on:
>
>         __ Problems that aren't too hard, so I don't get many wrong.
>         __ Problems that I'll learn a lot from, even if I won't look so smart.
>         __ Problems that are pretty easy, so I'll do well.
>         __ Problems that I'm pretty good at, so I can show that I'm smart.
>
>  c) People who preferred opportunities to learn over opportunities to look
>     smart or to avoid looking dumb were unaffected by treatments designed to
>     increase confusion (like being asked to learn from a booklet containing an
>     intentionally confusing paragraph) while people who stated the other
>     preferences were quite negatively affected by the "confusion" treatment.
>
>  d) Subsequent interventional studies showed that the correlation described in
>     (b) survived treatments designed to shift people's beliefs and preferences
>     in both directions, like being asked to read appropriately crafted stories
>     about how recognized geniuses accomplished their intellectual feats.
>
>Items (b) and (d) certainly seem like they might motivate some new OH / Nell
>tweaks, no?

Thinking through parts (b) and (c) a bit more: perhaps the OH website &
curriculum materials should offer "bugs that I will learn a lot from" in
addition to "bugs that are pretty easy"?

Michael

>
>Regards,
>
>Michael
>
>[1]: http://www.amazon.com/Self-theories-Motivation-Personality-Development-Psychology/dp/1841690244
>[2]: Caroline (cc'ed) introduced it to me in response to a recent bit of gentle
>     provocation [5] on the part of myself, Chris, and Scott...
>[3]: http://openhatch.org
>[4]: http://lists.openhatch.org/pipermail/devel/2010-December/001703.html; better citations welcome
>[5]: http://cananian.livejournal.com/66008.html