Encouraging Student t]Thinking

The authors suggest that individuals avert their eyes when questioned to ?

reduce distraction when thinking

Gaze aversion can be taught to _ years old

five

wait times of >3 seconds are associated with

- Improved standard use of language and logic

- improved standards and teacher attitudes and expectations

-longer standard responses

-more student to standard dialog

Gaze Aversion doesnt mean…but …

dislike of gazing BUT to look away not that you dont like looking

Prior research on gaze aversion show that

people avert their eyes when thinking in order to reduce distraction

speaking>listening

more with difficult questions

faces as well as video cameras

GA can significantly benefit performance when task is challenging but salvable (ZPD: Zone of Proximal Development and young children use GA less often and less consistently than older children (5 vs. 8 years). olds)

Goals of the study

Examine role of GA in 5 year olds

Experiment 1: can they encouraged to adopt GA? and does it improve their performance?

Experiment 2: How much does spontaneous GA develop in first year of school? (naturally)

Experiment #1 (trainability and effect theory)

randomly assigned to 1 to 2 types of instructions and tested individually

- Practice: 20 questions

- Test: 48 questions (1/2 verbal arithmetic, ½ easy, ½ moderately difficult, and repeated instructions from practice)

duirng pratice phase, they were told to look away from my face (treatment group only) and were reminded throughout the test to avert their eyes

Results/Main effects:

Main effects for time in GA

• verbal vs. arithmetic time (no difference in length of time spent in GA)

• moderately difficult vs easy time (more GA w/ modeteraly difficult items than easy ones)

• treatment vs. control (more GA aversion in the treatment group, therefore GA can be trained)

Main Effects for Accuracy

• verbal vs arthemtic time (no difference in accuracy)

• moderately difficult vseasy time (more correct answers for easy questions)

• treatment vs control (higher rate of accuracy among treatment group compared to control -GA improved performance in 5 years old)

Key takeaway: Gaze Aversion can be trained and improved performance in 5 year olds

Experiment 2 (development of spontaneous GA)

3 gorups of different kids in “primary year 1”(early kindergarten, 6 months into kindergarten, and end of kindergarten)

Procedure: No GA training and were asked questions (1/2 verbal, ½ arithmetic, ½ easy and ½ moderately difficult)

results: verbal and arithmetic questions, more GA for moderately difficult questions, substantial acquisition of spontaneous GA during kindergarten, levels of GA at the end of kinder still lower than among 8 year olds in other studies

Why should we care

GA appears to be a simple way to improve child’s cognitive performance on tasks with a reasonable level of challenge. gaze aversion can be used as a avert cue of a child’s cognitive improvement, and we can expect kindergarteners to improve their GPA skills on their own and for development to continue to least age 8