Translating education neuroscience for teachers

Abstract

Tham and colleagues (2019) examined if translating neuroscience abstracts into simple language could help teachers better understand the neuroscience content. 30 teachers from 2 Singapore primary schools took part in surveys, experiments, and focus group discussions. The researchers gathered teacher’s baseline knowledge in neuroscience, self-rated attitudes towards translated (simplified) and untranslated (original) neuroscience abstracts, and feedback about the translated abstracts. They found that teacher’s self-rated attitudes were similar for translated and untranslated abstracts, and teachers were more interested in the applications of neuroscience research in classroom setting. This study highlights the need for neuroscientists and educators to communicate more frequently with one another.