Towards Greater Collaboration in Educational Neuroscience: Perspectives From the 2018 Earli-SIG22 Conference

Abstract

The special issue resulting from the 2018 Earli-SIG22 conference reflects the current state of the field, the diversity of methods, the persevering limitations and promising directions towards solutions. About half of the empirical papers in this special issue that consist of three parts, uses behavioral, self-report or qualitative measures to understand the “mind” level of Mind, Brain, and Education. The other half investigates the “brain” level, using neuroimaging but also genetics or eye-tracking to gain access to the wider range of biological substrates of learning and cognition. These biological studies mostly have added value by refining psychological theories, such that these inspire new hypotheses to test in the field, to ultimately better inform teaching. Importantly, the special issue presents several approaches to more intensive, bi-directional and systematic practice-research collaborations to better connect the “mind” and “brain” levels to education, and to equip researchers to realize such collaborations successfully in the future.