A group of scientists set out to study quick learners. Then saw they don't exist(kqed.org)
kqed.org
A group of scientists set out to study quick learners. Then saw they don't exist
https://www.kqed.org/mindshift/62750/a-group-of-scientists-set-out-to-study-quick-learners-then-they-discovered-they-dont-exist
48 comments
As far as I can tell from reading the discussion section of the original paper, they unfortunately didn't address either a compounding effect or the fact that a small difference could accumulate over time. With the caveat that I may be misinterpreting the table, they did show that students with higher initial knowledge had faster learning rates [0]. That seems to be consistent with some students gradually accumulating an edge that grows over time, even if prior knowledge due to having more opportunities is also a factor, which is the authors' hypothesis. However, those rates were in log odds, meaning they decreased over time in percentage terms. That's only within the same task, so I don't think that rules out other types of compounding.
I will say that a student who consistently learns slightly faster and over the course of their entire education ends up drastically more skilled as a result would definitely be a faster learner, but that seems more muted than most people's intuitions of a "fast learner" or someone with a "knack" for a subject.
[0]: https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2221311120#t02
I will say that a student who consistently learns slightly faster and over the course of their entire education ends up drastically more skilled as a result would definitely be a faster learner, but that seems more muted than most people's intuitions of a "fast learner" or someone with a "knack" for a subject.
[0]: https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2221311120#t02
> That's a small difference in a single incremental component, but it represents a difference in learning rate of a whopping 35%
I guess I see the glass as half full, because that’s easy to overcome.
If a top learner is only 30% better, an average person could study for an hour and a half instead of an hour and easily surpass them. Time management is the ultimate superpower, and it’s something you can get better at, not something you are born with.
I guess I see the glass as half full, because that’s easy to overcome.
If a top learner is only 30% better, an average person could study for an hour and a half instead of an hour and easily surpass them. Time management is the ultimate superpower, and it’s something you can get better at, not something you are born with.
> I guess I see the glass as half full, because that’s easy to overcome.
It means that some will effectively be at grade 8 level in grade 12, that is not easy to overcome.
> an average person could study for an hour and a half instead of an hour and easily surpass them
That is just for homework, you won't get 50% longer schooldays. 50% more work means you have to spend many hours extra every day to learn as much as the faster kids do just by going to class. And that time is lower quality, you make much better connections when you don't strain yourself by spending all day studying.
It means that some will effectively be at grade 8 level in grade 12, that is not easy to overcome.
> an average person could study for an hour and a half instead of an hour and easily surpass them
That is just for homework, you won't get 50% longer schooldays. 50% more work means you have to spend many hours extra every day to learn as much as the faster kids do just by going to class. And that time is lower quality, you make much better connections when you don't strain yourself by spending all day studying.
> an average person could study for an hour and a half instead of an hour and easily surpass them
They would need to do this consistently every day for their entire school career.
Also, what if it's exactly this behaviour that creates the top (book) learners to begin with?
In my experience, most people just don't have any interest or motivation to sit and work hard on book learning things every single day for years on end.
Some people want to do work on practical stuff, others want to spend their time on athletics, and yet others want to spend time involved in social activities say creating music or other kinds of performance art etc.
They would need to do this consistently every day for their entire school career.
Also, what if it's exactly this behaviour that creates the top (book) learners to begin with?
In my experience, most people just don't have any interest or motivation to sit and work hard on book learning things every single day for years on end.
Some people want to do work on practical stuff, others want to spend their time on athletics, and yet others want to spend time involved in social activities say creating music or other kinds of performance art etc.
It could also be that learning rate drops the more time you spend during the day as brain gets fatigued. And in addition what if it drops more for the same people who already had a lower speed.
If this is true, which I think it is, this bring another, very important question: How this article got published? Who initiated it, who paid for it and why? What was the motive behind this publication?
"This story was written by Jill Barshay and produced by The Hechinger Report, a nonprofit, independent news organization focused on inequality and innovation in education."
I'm sure The Hechinger Report wants to promote the idea that achievement gaps can be closed by simply giving The Hechinger Report more funding.
I'm sure The Hechinger Report wants to promote the idea that achievement gaps can be closed by simply giving The Hechinger Report more funding.
Look, the politburo has demanded that there be no difference in learning rates and thus there shall be no differences in learning rates.
At least among castes. Can you imagine a world where an epsilon-minus semi-moron has a learning rate equal to an alpha-plus?
To add to this, not all students are working on problems at the same rate either. I’d be willing to bet a good portion of fast learners spend more time thinking about these things. By the time I took my first and only programming class in school I’d already been writing in basic and putting together batch scripts to manage launching games. Of course I picked up pascal much more quickly than my peers because I’d already spent a considerable amount of personal time tinkering in the space. Same with math. I probably spent a lot more time thinking about that than most of my peers. I’d zone out in unrelated classes trying to figure out ways to extrapolate or repurpose math tricks I’d learned because it was interesting to me. So I appeared to be a very fast learner. But was I? I still spent longer than most of my peers on those subjects.
> And there is a bit of a compounding effect, as the accumulated advantage of the fast learner would unlock progress on additional components that the slower learner lacked enough background for.
I’m not sure about this. Could you give an example (any subject) that would help me understand?
I’m not sure about this. Could you give an example (any subject) that would help me understand?
Math is the canonical one. You need arithmetic to get to algebra. You need algebra to get to geometry. You need geometry to get to calculus. Everything builds on each other, so you can’t skip to calculus when you barely know how to add.
There is a component of most domains where you figure out the fundamental building blocks and you can learn a bunch of different branches in any order without much overlap, but that’s usually after the initial mastery equivalent to math’s calculus.
There is a component of most domains where you figure out the fundamental building blocks and you can learn a bunch of different branches in any order without much overlap, but that’s usually after the initial mastery equivalent to math’s calculus.
Understood and I agree. What I’m not convinced of is that learning speed would have a compounding effect because of this. If we assume a vacuum where the only difference is learning speed than any leaps the fast learner make by combining previous knowledge would eventually be made by the slow learner. It’s just a linear control (assuming all else is the same) and subject / lesson shouldn’t matter.
I could see plenty of real world impacts of course. Discouragement / encouragement due to peer comparisons, limited availability of resources like teachers, etc.
I could see plenty of real world impacts of course. Discouragement / encouragement due to peer comparisons, limited availability of resources like teachers, etc.
Quick learners absolutely exist, or everyone would learn at the same rate in school.
I was regularly hamstrung by curriculae because I learned quickly. Schools chose to throw a bunch of busywork at me instead of deepening or questioning my understanding. "Your peers aren't on that yet." I don't care what my peers are doing. They made their decision about me years ago. If school can't be intellectually challenging then what's the damn point.
I was regularly hamstrung by curriculae because I learned quickly. Schools chose to throw a bunch of busywork at me instead of deepening or questioning my understanding. "Your peers aren't on that yet." I don't care what my peers are doing. They made their decision about me years ago. If school can't be intellectually challenging then what's the damn point.
If schools were run like Khan Lab School then they’d put students together by subject-matter capability, not age.
https://support.khanacademy.org/hc/en-us/articles/1150026831...
https://support.khanacademy.org/hc/en-us/articles/1150026831...
Multi-age classrooms are part of the Montessori philosophy.
> what’s the damn point
To churn out proletariats who will be happy and replaceable little cogs in the capitalist machine.
No, for real, schools follow the same damn paradigm established in the Industrial Revolution. They have no interest in deepening your understanding and you can see that in the people hired to teach.
To churn out proletariats who will be happy and replaceable little cogs in the capitalist machine.
No, for real, schools follow the same damn paradigm established in the Industrial Revolution. They have no interest in deepening your understanding and you can see that in the people hired to teach.
You are correct, but it's sad that education isn't about knowledge. We're forced by market conditions to seek money more than knowledge.
I've developed quite a cynical view of the world, with each new truth that's revealed about our society and the nature of people, my faith and trust lowers. But is it really cynical if, everywhere you look, you find evidence of its truth?
Rhetorical question but I think about it daily.
I've developed quite a cynical view of the world, with each new truth that's revealed about our society and the nature of people, my faith and trust lowers. But is it really cynical if, everywhere you look, you find evidence of its truth?
Rhetorical question but I think about it daily.
You can very much make education about knowledge, god knows i have always been thirsty for knowledge, but that’s the adhd in me seeking novelty.
I think that the broader society doesn’t encourage those who seek knowledge for the sake of knowledge, the know-it-alls, it doesn’t promote curiosity because curious minds question everything and leave no stone untouched, you don’t want that, you dont want people questioning your authority or capacity to rule metaphorical kingdoms.
But I don’t think this view implies something sinister either. I think it just shows how much trauma we carry through from our upbringing. I don’t think the average person wakes up and chooses some form of punishment for others.
I think ultimately we are all just trying to live some decent lives, and part of that includes avoiding confrontation with our shortcomings because that’s a difficult thing to do, especially if you are not used to.
I think that the broader society doesn’t encourage those who seek knowledge for the sake of knowledge, the know-it-alls, it doesn’t promote curiosity because curious minds question everything and leave no stone untouched, you don’t want that, you dont want people questioning your authority or capacity to rule metaphorical kingdoms.
But I don’t think this view implies something sinister either. I think it just shows how much trauma we carry through from our upbringing. I don’t think the average person wakes up and chooses some form of punishment for others.
I think ultimately we are all just trying to live some decent lives, and part of that includes avoiding confrontation with our shortcomings because that’s a difficult thing to do, especially if you are not used to.
The world needs ditch diggers as much as it needs PhD’s. We can come up with fictional stories about how robots or AI will magically do everything, but in the real world you need people to dig holes.
Training people to follow instructions is a necessary kind of education. You can already see problems forming as a result of how education has changed in the last few years. Lots of people who can code but a massive shortage of anyone who can put up drywall or service a boiler.
Training people to follow instructions is a necessary kind of education. You can already see problems forming as a result of how education has changed in the last few years. Lots of people who can code but a massive shortage of anyone who can put up drywall or service a boiler.
It doesn't help that those jobs are hard on the body and are not compensated enough to make up for that deficiency.
I love problem solving but the trades do not look like a healthy place to work.
I love problem solving but the trades do not look like a healthy place to work.
I think depends on the context as to whether or not it’s cynical and how much is hard evidence vs personal perception. You think the world is in bad shape cause the national trend is towards a lower trust society? I don’t think that is necessarily cynical. If you doom scroll and have now collected a bunch of scary things you
Have to be anxious about, probably a bit cynical.
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> Despite being in the same course, students’ initial performance varies substantially from about 55% correct for those in the lower half to 75% for those in the upper half. In contrast, and much to our surprise, we found students to be astonishingly similar in estimated learning rate, typically increasing by about 0.1 log odds or 2.5% in accuracy per opportunity.
It sounds like students were pre-tested, given instruction, and then post-tested. The researchers assume that students who did better on a pre-test were solely leveraging prior knowledge. The researchers do not consider that higher pre-test scores could have been due to the ability of some students to discern the correct answer from context, analogies, or first principles. Students who are able to do so would be seen as "quick learners" by their teachers and peers — though not by these researchers. These students would not need as much time to master all of the content in a lesson, since they would grasp perhaps 50% more of it than their peers right out of the gate.
The researchers focus on the fact that these students appear to learn the additional bits at roughly the same rate as their peers. But of course, if they have much less left to cover in a given lesson, then they will be done with the lesson well before their peers. By most definitions, this makes them 'quicker learners', assuming their initial performance was not based solely on prior knowledge, but was also based on their ability to figure out some of the material from the initial questions themselves.
Also, one would assume that the last parts of a lesson are the hardest to learn, so a student who understood 90% of the lesson at first might still be learning the last 10% faster than a student who came into the lesson understanding 50% of the lesson (when such student gets to the 90% point). However, the student who student who starts at 90% might appear to learn at the same rate as the other student because the other student is getting the 'low-hanging fruit' and moving from 50% to 60%. This should not be considered equivalent to moving from 90% to 100%.
It sounds like students were pre-tested, given instruction, and then post-tested. The researchers assume that students who did better on a pre-test were solely leveraging prior knowledge. The researchers do not consider that higher pre-test scores could have been due to the ability of some students to discern the correct answer from context, analogies, or first principles. Students who are able to do so would be seen as "quick learners" by their teachers and peers — though not by these researchers. These students would not need as much time to master all of the content in a lesson, since they would grasp perhaps 50% more of it than their peers right out of the gate.
The researchers focus on the fact that these students appear to learn the additional bits at roughly the same rate as their peers. But of course, if they have much less left to cover in a given lesson, then they will be done with the lesson well before their peers. By most definitions, this makes them 'quicker learners', assuming their initial performance was not based solely on prior knowledge, but was also based on their ability to figure out some of the material from the initial questions themselves.
Also, one would assume that the last parts of a lesson are the hardest to learn, so a student who understood 90% of the lesson at first might still be learning the last 10% faster than a student who came into the lesson understanding 50% of the lesson (when such student gets to the 90% point). However, the student who student who starts at 90% might appear to learn at the same rate as the other student because the other student is getting the 'low-hanging fruit' and moving from 50% to 60%. This should not be considered equivalent to moving from 90% to 100%.
Another slam dunk psychological study straight into the garbage bin.
It's very frustrating with these studies because they don't attempt to normalize anything at all. Imagine teaching derivatives and finding that some students learn faster than others. Their excuse? Oh it must be because they did fractions when making pancakes.
One of the easiest ways to create a replicable study, which they won't ever do, would be to place students who have no experience typing (which is common for every generation) and see which ones learn fastest. If you are bothered by this then we can do learning piano, filtering out any student which may have musical practice ahead of time. It would be easy to find. Hypothesis would be that those with higher IQ have a higher rate of mastery.
It's very frustrating with these studies because they don't attempt to normalize anything at all. Imagine teaching derivatives and finding that some students learn faster than others. Their excuse? Oh it must be because they did fractions when making pancakes.
One of the easiest ways to create a replicable study, which they won't ever do, would be to place students who have no experience typing (which is common for every generation) and see which ones learn fastest. If you are bothered by this then we can do learning piano, filtering out any student which may have musical practice ahead of time. It would be easy to find. Hypothesis would be that those with higher IQ have a higher rate of mastery.
Big, if true.
Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence, and I'm not sure that single study meets the bar.
It is certainly a valid issue to measure starting point as well as ending point to measure learning rates, but to claim that this entirely accounts for apparent differences in learning rates such that there are no differences exceeding 1% just strains credulity.
Just looking at my own learning rates on different fields I can see myself picking up some things far faster than other things, and the reverse in friends and family (e.g., quickly picking up things I'm slower to learn).
Seems more like an intriguing start to more research rather than the conclusive tone presented in the article.
Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence, and I'm not sure that single study meets the bar.
It is certainly a valid issue to measure starting point as well as ending point to measure learning rates, but to claim that this entirely accounts for apparent differences in learning rates such that there are no differences exceeding 1% just strains credulity.
Just looking at my own learning rates on different fields I can see myself picking up some things far faster than other things, and the reverse in friends and family (e.g., quickly picking up things I'm slower to learn).
Seems more like an intriguing start to more research rather than the conclusive tone presented in the article.
There are so many factors. Compounding knowledge, ability to focus, and environment are crucial components to learning. That plus motivation and interest, diet, sleep, and knowing how your brain learns best.
It's interesting to look back in time at things you did that maybe didn't add much to your schema/knowledge bank. Also interesting to look around at what others focused on.
It's interesting to look back in time at things you did that maybe didn't add much to your schema/knowledge bank. Also interesting to look around at what others focused on.
To an outsider I look like a programming language fast learner. I picked up python in a month and passed multiple big tech interviews.
Reality is that I had been programming in C++, fortran and DSL for over a decade.
Similar examples from colleagues in college and schoolmates. People with strong foundations seem to learn faster, but the reality is that there is past effort that you don’t see.
Reality is that I had been programming in C++, fortran and DSL for over a decade.
Similar examples from colleagues in college and schoolmates. People with strong foundations seem to learn faster, but the reality is that there is past effort that you don’t see.
Programming is probably an extreme case, since some people begin it as a hobby in middle school or high school and others go into introductory CS classes having done no programming at all, but it's not hard to imagine similar factors happening in other subjects. For example, I did well in high school English courses, which I and my peers obviously had years of classes in already—but I also did extra curricular reading and writing, mostly because it was something I enjoyed.
Now, would I say natural aptitude is negligible or non-existent, as the headline does? No, I don't think a single study is that definitive (and it did find a difference, just a small one).
Now, would I say natural aptitude is negligible or non-existent, as the headline does? No, I don't think a single study is that definitive (and it did find a difference, just a small one).
True. This might be confirmation bias so take it with a grain of salt: At school both students and teachers used to consider me brilliant. They saw me picking up concepts faster. But I knew all I had was a headstart. Everytime I was supplied books at the start of a new level,I just read them all and hunt for interesting knowledge.
A lot of students depend on extrinsic motivation - they want a reward for learning, or they don't want to be punished.
While you may disagree with labels, there is a positive correlation between intrinsic motivation and intelligence.
While you may disagree with labels, there is a positive correlation between intrinsic motivation and intelligence.
Learning a second programming language is always easier than the first, or rather second language within a paradigm. Going from C++/Java to Prolog is for example a really alien experience. But to C#, its largely just syntax.
> but the reality is that there is past effort that you don’t see.
This. Always this.
This. Always this.
There's also the question of what to learn. I don't know if this has really been proven but it seems to me that some people who seem to learn quickly are those that have mastered the art of learning the minimum needed to accomplish their goal. And then there's those that go deep and venture into every nook and cranny of the subject and gather immensely more knowledge than what is needed for the task at hand.
I remember reading a study that a classic bell curve doesn't exist for home schooled students - all students reached a certain level of aptitude. However, if you graph "time taken to reach target aptitude", the bell curve comes back.
Unfortunately now I can't find where I read that despite extensive searching. I want to say it was attributed to Maslow.
Anyway, this article claims the exact opposite by saying people learn at the same rates.
Unfortunately now I can't find where I read that despite extensive searching. I want to say it was attributed to Maslow.
Anyway, this article claims the exact opposite by saying people learn at the same rates.
This made me go look this up:
Actress Marilu Henner, best known for her role as Elaine Nardo in the hit sitcom Taxi, has a highly superior autobiographical memory (HSAM), a rare condition shared by only 100 people worldwide.
I suspect those 100 people would be able to learn certain material faster than others.
I'm also curious about people who have learned mnemonic tricks. I've seen people memorize the order of the US Presidents in just a few minutes once they are taught a memory trick...
But yeah, the point of the article, in my mind, is that nothing beats investing a lot of time in especially in early childhood exposing people to all kinds of learning opportunities.
Actress Marilu Henner, best known for her role as Elaine Nardo in the hit sitcom Taxi, has a highly superior autobiographical memory (HSAM), a rare condition shared by only 100 people worldwide.
I suspect those 100 people would be able to learn certain material faster than others.
I'm also curious about people who have learned mnemonic tricks. I've seen people memorize the order of the US Presidents in just a few minutes once they are taught a memory trick...
But yeah, the point of the article, in my mind, is that nothing beats investing a lot of time in especially in early childhood exposing people to all kinds of learning opportunities.
> This story was written by Jill Barshay and produced by The Hechinger Report, a nonprofit, independent news organization focused on inequality and innovation in education.
that explains the smell.
that explains the smell.
GASP!
This is not natural science, but these scientists are doing the best they can to support their theories anyway.
I wouldn't consider myself an expert in non-natural science, even though I do understand some of it to an extent.
So I could take this at face value, it's quite plausible that nobody has ever been fast.
This fully explains the confirmation of different learning rates universally observed over the millennia, we're all just different degrees of slow.
I wouldn't consider myself an expert in non-natural science, even though I do understand some of it to an extent.
So I could take this at face value, it's quite plausible that nobody has ever been fast.
This fully explains the confirmation of different learning rates universally observed over the millennia, we're all just different degrees of slow.
People questioning the headline are missing the point of the underlying article.
The underlying study is not about just rate of learning, but rate of learning under favorable conditions.
The article describes where the data comes from:
> In particular, we model learning using 27 datasets with over 1.3 million student performance observations from 6,946 learners in 12 different courses ranging across math, science, and language learning, across educational levels from late elementary to college, and across educational technologies including intelligent tutoring systems, educational games, and online courses
And the authors argue this is favorable learning conditions because of providing things like immediate feedback on errors, etc..
Lots of room for nuance, but "favorable learning conditions" is key here.
https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2221311120
The underlying study is not about just rate of learning, but rate of learning under favorable conditions.
The article describes where the data comes from:
> In particular, we model learning using 27 datasets with over 1.3 million student performance observations from 6,946 learners in 12 different courses ranging across math, science, and language learning, across educational levels from late elementary to college, and across educational technologies including intelligent tutoring systems, educational games, and online courses
And the authors argue this is favorable learning conditions because of providing things like immediate feedback on errors, etc..
Lots of room for nuance, but "favorable learning conditions" is key here.
https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2221311120
Access to "favorable learning conditions" comes back to access to resources which some people won't engage with at all.
FWIK public school systems create workers. Private school systems create employers. Courtesy General Education Board / JD Rockefeller / a time when labor advantages in America were in demand.
Based on this article, anyone complaining about how hard their classes were just didn't drink as much I did. They certainly couldn't have studied less. That I'm certain of.
This is obviously complete nonsense, no need to read the article.
One interesting fact is that they concede that some students are able to memorize more quickly than other students. It is hard to believe that students who can memorize easily would, as a group, not learn at a faster rate than students who struggle to memorize.
"The fastest quarter of students improved their accuracy on each concept (or knowledge component) by about 2.6 percentage points after each practice attempt, while the slowest quarter of students improved by about 1.7 percentage points."
That's a small difference in a single incremental component, but it represents a difference in learning rate of a whopping 35%; over ten practice attempt, the fast learner would've accumulated 26 percentage points of improvement, the slow learner only 17 percentage points. And there is a bit of a compounding effect, as the accumulated advantage of the fast learner would unlock progress on additional components that the slower learner lacked enough background for.
Add these two effects over the thousands of components that would make up a curriculum throughout a K-12 career and it wouldn't surprise me if you had top learners accumulating over twice the progress of their slower learning peers, and much of that knowledge would be in higher value components inaccessible to the slower learning students (eg, learning calculus and AP biology over geometry and basic science).