Yesterday, I came across this message (in French) on Twitter. Because the person who shared it isn’t named Éléonore, I assume she didn’t write it herself. So I went looking. Call it an obsession. I found the same message a few times, including on Facebook , but also a similar message from a certain Claire on Instagram:… Read More Synthetic Authenticity: Be Careful With AI Testimonials About Education…
I, too, have received emails about articles or papers that I supposedly wrote, but which simply do not exist. It is a phenomenon that researchers increasingly encounter, as AI systems produce convincing-sounding but fabricated references. Through Inside Higher Ed, I discovered that these are now called Frankencitations. These citations appear to be compiled from existing authors,… Read More Word of the day: Frankencitations
“ Your brain starts rotting away after just ten minutes of AI use,” Vice headlined this week. Similar interpretations of a new preprint on AI use and cognitive performance appeared elsewhere as well. When I discussed the research on Belgian National radio, I tried to present the study more accurately. The study itself, however, is more interesting than the headlines suggest. Researchers from Carnegie… Read More What remains when AI is gone?
The article in The Athletic about Carl Hendrick and motivation is interesting precisely because it pushes against a very familiar idea: that motivation comes first and achievement follows naturally afterwards. Hendrick argues almost the opposite. Small experiences of success, he says, are often what create motivation in the first place. There is something valuable in… Read More What Carl Hendrick and The New York Times May Get Wrong About Motivation
It is quite literally an age-old debate. Are children born as a blank slate, or is everything already determined from the start? These are two positions that have alternated for centuries, usually in slightly more modern packaging, from behaviourism to insights from genetics. One emphasises environment and experience, the other focuses on disposition and biology.… Read More Children are not born as blank slates, but as overstuffed bookcases
*Update*: Daniël Muijs sent me this link. I’ve added this to this blog! This blog exists because of the almighty RSS feeds. When I checked my Old Reader today, I couldn’t believe my eyes. This is what I saw: I haven’t clicked on every single article, but this is an example of one of the… Read More This morning’s RSS feed: a wave of BERA retractions (and what it says about academic publishing)
As an education mythbuster, I often get questions about statements people make. In recent weeks, one in particular has come up several times: “Reading comprehension does not exist.” For some, that may sound odd. For others, there may be something to it. Perhaps because it touches on something that has been bothering education for quite… Read More Does “reading comprehension” even exist?
We’ve almost all grown up with it: carrots are good for your eyesight. And spinach makes you strong (but that’s another story, or is it?). In some places, there’s an even stronger version of the claim: carrots can help you see in the dark. But where does that idea actually come from? And is it… Read More Do carrots really improve your eyesight? A myth born in World War II
Scientific fraud is often presented as a problem of individual researchers crossing the line. Think of cases such as Diederik Stapel, more recently Dan Ariely, or even Oliver Sacks. Someone fabricates data. Someone manipulates an image. And then someone writes an article that simply isn’t correct. But a recent PNAS study by Richardson et al. suggests that… Read More Paper Mills and the Industrialisation of Scientific Fraud
I have to be careful now, as some of my kids used to be fans of MrBeast, but what he’s saying in this video, which I found in this tweet, is close to complete nonsense. I’ll ignore the learning styles claim he casually throws in. No, you are not a visual learner. That discussion is… Read More Why MrBeast Gets Education Wrong (A Short Rant About a Familiar Myth)