The Credentials of Brain‐Based Learning

By Andrew Davis. 2004

98 citations recorded by the source corpus.

This paper discusses the current fashion for brain-based learning, in which value-laden claims about learning are grounded in neurophysiology. It argues that brain science cannot have the ‘authority’ about learning that some seek to give it. It goes on to discuss whether the claim that brain science is relevant to learning involves a category mistake. The heart of the paper tries to show how the contribution of brain science to our grasp of the nature of learning is limited in principle. Finally the paper explores the potential of brain science to illuminate specific learning disabilities. Some people imagine that they investigate learning itself by studying brain functioning. The required techniques are highly specialised and technical, enjoying dramatically rapid development with the advent of approaches such as Positron Emission Tomography (PET) scans. Moreover, it has become fashionable recently to talk of ‘brain-based learning’ and to attempt to add weight to educational recommendations by appealing to supposedly relevant discoveries about brain functioning. In the light of this it is important to ask how far brain science can contribute to our understanding of learning. A comprehensive answer would require more than a few books. This paper identifies three or four issues for discussion from the much larger number that would need to be addressed in a definitive treatment. First I discuss first some of the philosophical issues raised by appealing to brain phenomena to justify claims about good or effective ways to learn. Next I examine the contention that relating recommendations about learning to brain phenomena involves ‘category mistakes’. In the most important section of the paper I show that the scope for brain science to investigate learning is limited in principle. Finally I ask whether discoveries about the brain can illuminate the understanding of specific learning disabilities.

Subfields: Cognitive Neuroscience, Developmental and Educational Psychology

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/b8b55d641530ca958664ca259e4d9385c4173853

How researchers see this paper

The researchers whose trusted networks rank it highest, strongest advocate first. Every researcher gets a different order.

In Cognitive Neuroscience

  1. J. Lange
  2. F. Nes

In Developmental and Educational Psychology

  1. J. Lange
  2. F. Nes

Citations in the corpus