This week we learn about ambient noise for creative thinking, email checking frequency, and academic tracking, which is separating students into different classes or schools according to their academic ability.
- Individuals who were instructed to only check e-mails 3 times per day (as opposed to as many times as they wanted) reported lower levels of daily stress.
- Ask Useful Science: Academic Tracking
- The Variable Effects of High School Tracking (Gamoran, 1992)
- Peer Effects, Teacher Incentives, and the Impact of Tracking: Evidence from a Randomized Evaluation in Kenya (Duflo, Dupas & Kremer, 2008)
- Implications for Ability Grouping in Mathematics for Fifth Grade Students (Stinnet, 2013)
- Ability Grouping Interventions and Math Performance Among Inner-City School (Sreckovic, 2015)
- Can Universal Screening Increase the Representation of Low Income and Minority Students in Gifted Education? (Card & Giuliano, 2015)
- The optimal noise level for carrying out abstract thinking and creative tasks is 70 dB, which is the average noise level of a coffee shop.
Thomas Donoghue
Tom is a PhD student in the Cognitive Science department of UCSD, where he uses computational methods and neural recordings to investigate how the brain communicates with itself. He did a Cognitive Science Bachelor's degree at McGill University and has research experience in neuroimaging and language studies. Outside of being a science nerd, he enjoys travel and music.
Michael Gaultois
Michael is hunting a PhD in Chemistry at the University of California, and is a big fan of fountain pens, smoked gouda, M.C. Escher, and high fives. His interests have taken him to collegiate service organizations, RC helicopters, organizational management, start-up companies, world travels, and scientific endeavours.
Joshua Jackson
Joshua Conrad Jackson is a PhD student at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He studies how culture changes over time, and the impact of cultural change on human cognition and behavior. Outside of research, he enjoys traveling and long-distance running.
