Pre-Service Teachers’ Beliefs About Neuroscience and Education—Do Freshmen and Advanced Students Differ in Their Ability to Identify Myths?

Abstract

Addressing and creating awareness on the topic of neuromyths in educational sciences has increased in recent years. We know very little about how widespread the belief in neuromyths is among pre-service teacher students and whether this belief affects their subsequent approach to teaching and consequently possibly also the performance of their students. The aim of the study was to analyze students’ belief in neuromyths, focusing on differences between freshmen (N = 82) and advanced students (N = 74) studying in pre-service teacher education. Using a questionnaire approach, students had to judge whether given statements were objectively wrong (i.e., “Neuromyths”) or objectively correct (i.e., “Neurofacts”). They could also choose the option “I don’t know”. For each statement, we asked students to indicate how self-confident they were about their answer. Furthermore, students’ self-assessment of their need for cognition and ability-related academic self-concept was measured. Results reveal no significant difference between freshmen and advanced students for identifying the myths correctly, but a significant difference for identifying the facts correctly, showing that freshmen identified slightly more facts correctly than advanced students. Self-confidence plays an important role here, as we see that within the master students, students with high self-confidence values identified more facts correctly.