I guess it is an "education."
"Program makes math easy as 1, 2, 3; Researchers study cues to predict performance" by Carolyn Y. Johnson, Globe Staff / June 7, 2010
TURNERS FALLS — While Shelby Lapinski worked to solve a geometry problem on her computer screen, her seat cushion monitored fidgeting and a camera registered uncertainty or concentration flitting across her face. A bracelet measured sweat, and the mouse, fitted with pressure sensors, tracked her grip.
Lapinski was taking part in a study that looks at whether a computer math tutoring program that can detect and respond to students’ emotions — offering encouragement or hints at the right moment — can reduce frustration and anxiety. Initial results look promising....
The project is just one way in which researchers are trying to understand how school or work environments can affect students’ or employees’ sense that they belong or will succeed. Many studies have examined “stereotype threat,’’ in which performance is affected when people are reminded of a stereotype.
Researchers now are testing whether certain situations can make people feel vulnerable. Others are looking at “ambient belonging,’’ the ways in which environmental cues, such as a room’s decor, can affect whether a person has a sense of fitting in and develops interest in a subject....
Imagine what a WAR ZONE DOES to you!
Mary Murphy, assistant professor of social psychology at the University of Illinois at Chicago, said the approach “is premised around the idea that environments matter in how we think about ourselves, about how we think about our aspirations, and what we will do in the future.’’
In an experiment published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology in 2009, college students were told they were participating in a career center study assessing interest in technical jobs. Participants came to one of two rooms. One was decorated with “Star Trek’’ posters, soda cans, junk food, comics, and video game boxes — objects associated with computer science. The researchers wanted to see if the stereotypical objects carried masculine cues that affected women’s interest in the subject. The other room used nonstereotypical objects, such as a nature poster, coffee mugs, and general interest magazines.
Women expressed less interest in computer science than men in the first room, according to Sapna Cheryan, assistant professor of psychology at the University of Washington, who led the work. In the second room, men and women were equally interested in computer science....
Translation: Girls don't like geeks.
On a recent visit to the Turners Falls computer lab, students in an MCAS prep class expressed reservations about math, calling it everything from boring to hard.
Girls just wanna have fun!
But the researchers hope the data they collect will help them understand how to present problems in a way that erases emotional barriers to doing math.
“When students come in, they have big baggage — all their preconceptions of what math is about,’’ said Ivon Arroyo, a research scientist at the University of Massachusetts Amherst who is working on the software being tested at Turners Falls, called Wayang Outpost. “There are so many messages being transmitted that are not only the [math] problem.’’
Not like he has anything to gain from the wheel-$pinning "research."
--more--"
