Nipping an education myth in the bud: Poh’s brain activity during lectures

Abstract

The debate around the value of lectures is raging strongly, and new empirical data arguing against the value of lectures comes from a chart showing student brain activity during lectures. The evidence from the chart, however, suffers from crucial problems. These include a small and unspecific sample, mislabeling of the student activities, and a misinterpretation of the type of measurement. This chart has appeared on the Internet, in education conferences and journals, and recently at a medical education conference. For medical education to be taken seriously, it is crucial that researchers apply the same standards that they would to clinical research. As a result, this chart should be avoided in the debate on the value of lectures before it has a chance to follow a pattern in medical education set by other myths.

Acknowledgements

My thanks to the anonymous reviewers, and to Cees van der Vleuten of Maastricht University, for comments on an earlier draft of this article and to Rosalind Picard for her email correspondence.

Declaration of interest: The author reports no conflicts of interest. The author alone is responsible for the content and writing of the article.