Digital natives do not exist. The concept of an entire generation of children developing a specific skill set owing to computer use is nowhere supported in the literature.

And yet so many of us believe that digital natives are real.

This got me thinking: what are a few more common myths surrounding students and their learning?

Myth 1: Fun equals learning

Although there is a wealth of research demonstrating that displeasure can greatly impair learning, there appears to be only a very weak correlation between enjoyment and learning. Put simply, when it comes to enjoyment, it appears that some is just as good as a lot.

We can all recognise this. There have been times when I’ve enjoyed a film (Thor), yet remembered little afterwards, and other times when I’ve been less enthused with a film (Affliction), yet remembered a lot afterwards.

The reason for this is that, although I never spoke about Thor afterwards, I spent much time discussing, debating and wrestling with the themes of Affliction after watching it.

In the end, enjoyment had little impact on learning; undertaking long-established effective learning strategies did.

When the ultimate goal is learning, then enjoyment is only relevant in that it focuses attention on relevant material. Growing up, I must have played 100 hours of video game The Oregon Trail (highly enjoyable) - yet, because the engaging elements were focused on irrelevant actions (hunting, fording rivers, dying of dysentery), I can tell you nothing about the actual Oregon Trail today.

Myth 2: Growth mindset improves learning

Mindset is one of the most widely recognised and adopted edutrends of recent decades. Unfortunately, a student’s mindset has only a very weak correlation with her or his learning and academic performance.

Furthermore, mindset interventions (teaching pupils how to develop a “growth” mindset) also appear to have no significant impact on performance.

But perhaps this is OK. Mindset has been correlated with increased confidence and motivation within certain subgroups of students. Accordingly, perhaps the power of this concept does not concern learning.

In that case, however, it is important that proponents do not conflate the two and instead honestly represent what can be expected from these types of interventions.

Myth 3: Class size does not influence student achievement

This one was made internationally popular by John Hattie. As we learned in my last column, more than 90 per cent of all the research used to construct Hattie’s Visible Learning defines learning as the short-term memorisation and recall of facts. When learning is measured in this manner, class size certainly appears to have only a small impact on performance.

However, once learning is redefined at a deeper level - say, the conceptualisation and utilisation of facts - then smaller classes have a much larger positive impact. As has been pointed out in the past, these changes largely occur due to a shift in the relationships formed and methods employed by teachers with varied groups of students.

Jared Cooney Horvath is a neuroscientist, educator and author. To ask our resident learning scientist a question, please email: AskALearningScientist@gmail.com

This article originally appeared in the 17 July 2020 issue under the headline “Three great myths of education”