MIND, BRAIN, AND EDUCATION
Educational Neuromyths
Among Teachers in Latin
America
Ezequiel Gleichgerrcht1 , Benjamin Lira Luttges2 , Florencia Salvarezza3 , and Anna Lucia Campos2
ABSTRACT— Neuroscientific knowledge has undeniably
gained interest among educators worldwide. However,
not all “brain facts” believed by teachers are supported by
science. This study sought to evaluate the belief in these
so-called neuromyths among 3,451 Latin American teachers.
We found that, consistent with prior research among teach-
ers in other geographic areas, teachers in Latin America
hold major misconceptions about neuroscience, especially
as it relates to factual information about its structure and
functioning. Differences across South American nations
were observed with moderate and slight effect sizes for gen-
eral knowledge of the brain and neuromyths, respectively.
Teachers working in higher education had slightly superior
performance. Teachers at all levels who reported knowing
more about the brain, however, were more likely to believe
invalid assertions known as neuromyths. These results shed
light on trends in the field of education, hoping to encourage
the development of strategies aimed at correcting the use of
science as it relates to education. The implications regarding
teaching practice, policy, and teacher training are discussed.
For the past two decades, we have witnessed an ever-growing
interest in neuroscience and knowledge about the brain,
both in and outside the laboratory. Education has not been
an exception to this phenomenon, and after centuries of
parallel work between (neuro)scientists and educators, we
now recognize the need for them to converge in an attempt
to design better, more efficient teaching and learning
1 Department of Neurology, Medical University of South Carolina
2 Centro
Iberoamericano de Neurociencia, Educación y Desarrollo
Humano—Cerebrum
3 Institute of Cognitive Neurology
Address correspondence to Dr. Ezequiel Gleichgerrcht, Department of
Neurology, Medical University of South Carolina, 96 Jonathan Lucas
St. Suite CSB 301, Charleston, SC 29425; e-mail: gleichge@musc.edu.
170 © 2015 International Mind, Brain, and Education Society and Wiley Periodicals, Inc.
strategies (Sigman, Pena, Goldin, & Ribeiro, 2014). Building
bridges between neuroscience and education is naturally
an ambitious process (Ansari, Coch, & De Smedt, 2011;
Devonshire & Dommett, 2010), filled with challenges of
varying nature. One such challenge involves the populariza-
tion of misleading information, folk psychology, and general
misconceptions not only about the brain in general (e.g., “We
only use 10% of our brains”), but also relating specifically to
education (e.g., “This lesson is designed for the visual learn-
ers”) (Dekker, Lee, Howard-Jones, & Jolles, 2012; Pasquinelli,
2012). The Organization for Economic Co-operation and
Development (OECD) took particular interest in this issue
(2002) and, coining the term neuromyth to refer to any
misconception resulting from intentional (e.g., commercial
purposes) or unintentional (e.g., miscommunication) distor-
tion of neuroscientific findings to argue for the incorporation
of brain research into classrooms and schools in general.
There are some fundamental concerns regarding the
proliferation of these so-called neuromyths. First, as it
is usually the case with pseudoscience (e.g., Lilienfeld,
Ammirati, & David, 2012), neuromyths tend to be attractive
for the general public because they make sense and often
rely on intuitive, friendly explanations to everyday issues
(Howard-Jones, 2014). For instance, Herculano-Houzel
(2002) demonstrated high rates of belief in popular state-
ments about the brain that were scientifically unfounded
among the general population of Brazil. Not surprisingly,
these myths tend to become especially captivating for the
press, and get extensive attention from the media (Beck,
2010), consequently propagating at a notorious and concern-
ing rate (Goswami, 2006; Lilienfeld et al., 2012). The mass
media’s use of neuroscientific explanations also feeds on the
public’s tendency to accept any fact or argument—despite
its possible lack of validity—if it is supposedly backed up
by brain research (Weisberg, Keil, Goodstein, Rawson, &
Gray, 2008), especially if accompanied by brain imaging
(McCabe & Castel, 2008). Second, there is high risk for
some of these myths to propagate among teachers, and even
Volume 9—Number 3
 Ezequiel Gleichgerrcht et al.
further down from educators to learners. This may occur
both in the context of formal content (e.g., science lectures)
and informally (e.g., “Let’s try to use more than 10% of our
brain for this course!”; “You should be more right-brained
for this class”). Third, there is also a high risk for misuse
of financial, human, infrastructural, and time resources on
behalf of school administrators and teachers in the hopes of
incorporating brain research in their everyday school activ-
ities (Sylvan & Christodoulou, 2010). For instance, Dekker
et al. (2012) recently found that up to 98% of surveyed U.K.
teachers had engaged in programs on “learning styles,” 82%
on “brain gym,” and 71% on multiple intelligences, among
other figures of major concern. This reveals that while
schools may be actively trying to build on knowledge gen-
erated from research in educational neuroscience, they are
prone to becoming victims of pseudoscientific trends. This
is especially important because reports have demonstrated
that there is a widespread openness among educators, inter-
nationally, to learn about neurosciences and its potential
use in the classroom (Pickering & Howard-Jones, 2007).
Latin America is no exception to this eagerness of teach-
ers to gain knowledge about the brain, as evidenced by an
increasing number of educational neuroscience initiatives,
postgraduate courses, and conferences. The reality of Latin
America is, nonetheless, further complicated by several
factors. On the one hand, the socioeconomic context of
developing countries in the region raises questions as to
whether we should be focusing on building bridges between
neuroscience and education when there are some basic
fundamental needs (e.g., infrastructure) that are still far
from being met for many schools throughout the continent.
On the other hand is the issue of language. A vast majority
of teachers speak limited or no English, and are thus unable
to easily access information about learning and the brain.
In fact, this further exacerbates the problem of pseudosci-
entific programs aimed at training teachers in the so-called
“latest trends in neuroscience,” because they are usually
organized locally in their native language and translated by
nonexperts, many with ulterior motives.
Recently, a high prevalence of belief in neuromyths
has been documented among British, Dutch, Turkish,
Greek, and Chinese primary and secondary school teachers
(Dekker et al., 2012; Howard-Jones, 2014). Their results
further revealed the worrying situation of neuroscientific
misconceptions among educators, especially as it relates to
commercialized programs such as “brain gym” or “learning
styles.” To the best of our knowledge, no previous study has
investigated the belief in neuromyths throughout the Latin
American region. Here, we sought to determine the preva-
lence of neuromyths in a large sample of teachers from Latin
America. For the purposes of this study, we focused pri-
marily on teachers from Argentina, Chile, and Peru, which
appear to be the countries in the region where most activities
Volume 9—Number 3
and training opportunities have emerged in educational neu-
roscience. We further sought to explore potential differences
between countries in the region and compare trends with
results from European teachers based prior research. More-
over, we were interested in evaluating whether reading popu-
lar science and primary scientific literature, as well as having
had access to neuroscientific material, was associated with
general knowledge about the brain and belief in neuromyths.
MATERIALS AND METHODS
Participants
Participants were teachers of all levels currently working
in Latin America. The total sample included 3,451 teachers
from Argentina (n = 551), Chile (n = 598), Peru (n = 2,222),
and other Latin American countries (n = 80, including
Mexico, Nicaragua, Colombia, and Uruguay).
Procedure
Potential respondents were recruited at various events
related to education (e.g., book fair, pedagogy training
sessions, etc.), by word of mouth, and via email invita-
tions to databases of people who had previously enquired
about information/courses on neuroscience and edu-
cation. Because of the diversity of outlets employed to
recruit participants, some responses were delivered in
pen and paper form, and others completed on an online
platform exclusively designed for the purposes of this
study. A priori analyses revealed no significant differences
between teachers completing the survey in paper (56%)
and those completing it online in terms of (a) response
rates (online: Argentina = 82%, Chile = 85%, Perú = 75%,
and Others = 81%; paper: Argentina = 98%, Chile = 98%,
Perú = 99%, and Others = n/a; χ2 = 1.05, df = 2, p = .59),
as well as (b) in terms of responses to the questionnaire,
reason why all participants were pooled together for group
analysis. Mean completion time for both modalities was
approximately 14 min.
Measures
Respondents initially gave their informed consent and
provided demographic and professional background infor-
mation, including (a) age, (b) sex, (c) years of teaching
experience, (d) levels at which they teach (i.e., early child-
hood, elementary school, high school, and/or higher
education), (e) whether they read general related “pop
science” articles (yes/no), (f ) whether they read primary
scientific literature (yes/no), and (g) whether they had ever
had access to information about learning and the brain.
Participants then completed the survey. We used a
Spanish translation of the survey originally introduced by
171
 Educational Neuromyths Among Latin American Teachers

Dekker et al. (2012), which presents 32 statements about

brain and learning/education. Unaware to participants, 20
of these items were general assertions about the brain and 12
of these statements constituted neuromyths in education.1
In order to avoid response biases based on the order of
items, different versions with varying order of statements
were administered, at random, across participants. For
each item, participants were asked to determine whether
the statement was correct or incorrect. A third option,
do not know, was also available. For each participant, we
determined (a) percentage of correct responses to general
brain assertions (i.e. identifying valid assertions as correct
and invalid assertions as incorrect), (b) percentage of belief
in neuromyths (i.e. identifying neuromyths as true), and
(c) percentage of statements marked as do not know.

Data Analysis
Differences between countries were analyzed using analysis
of variance (ANOVA) with Bonferroni post hoc compar-
isons. Contingency coefficients were computed to compare
categorical variables. The α value for all statistical tests was
set at 0.05, two-tailed, but given the large sample size of
participants in the study, differences are shown as Cohen’s
d scores because the size of the effect when comparing
groups is more important than the degree of significance
per se. Effect sizes for correlations are reported as R2 .
When interpreting results, we followed Cohen’s (1992)
classification of effect sizes as small/slightly (d = .10–.39),
medium/moderately (d = .40–.69), or large/substantially
(d > .70). Effect sizes for analyses of categorical data are
expressed in terms of Cramér’s V score (Cramér, 1999).
RESULTS
Sociodemographic and Professional Profile
Mean (SD) age of teachers participating in this study was
43.4 (10.5) years and they had 17.8 (10.5) years of experience
on average. A total of 24.1% worked at the early childhood
level, 54.8% in elementary school, 22.1% in high school, and
8.4% in higher education. Of these, 9.4% had experience
in more than one level of education. A total of 60.9% of
teachers reported reading general articles about science and
71% stated they read primary scientific articles. A total of
55% also reported having had previous access to information
about learning and the brain.
General Knowledge About the Brain
For the overall sample, we found an average rate of 66.7%
(SD = 13.5%) correct responses to general statements about
the brain. Of these statements, 12.5% (SD = 13.2%) were
marked as do not know. As shown in Figure 1a, a significant
Fig. 1. Mean (SEM) percent correct responses to general state-
ments about the brain (a) across teachers in different countries; (b)
across teachers working in different levels (EC = early childhood;
ES = elementary school; HS = high school; HE = higher education);
and (c) between teachers who stated they have read general science
texts (GST), primary scientific literature (PSL), or neuroscientific
material (NM), and those who did not.
difference, F(3,3447 ) = 29.0, p < .001, Cohen’s d = 0.32, was
found across countries for their general knowledge about
the brain, with Peruvian respondents exhibiting the lowest
scores compared to all other countries (p < .001). Post hoc
comparison of performance between all other countries was
not significant (all p > .05). As shown in Figure 1b, a signif-
icant difference was also found between teachers working
at different levels, F(3,3447 ) = 22.3, p < .001, Cohen’s d = 0.28.
Specifically, we found that professors in higher education
had higher rates of correct responses to general statements
than all other education levels (all p < .001), while the latter
did not differ significantly from one another (all p > .05).
Teachers who stated they read general texts about science,
t(2892 ) = 8.94, p < .001, Cohen’s d = 0.33, and primary scien-
tific literature, t(2916 ) = 6.71, p < .001, Cohen’s d = 0.25, per-
formed significantly better than those who did not frequently
engage in such readings. Similarly, teachers who had previ-
ously had access to material about learning and the brain
exhibited significantly higher rates of correct responses
t(2755 ) = 11.5, p < .001, Cohen’s d = 0.44, than participants
who were naïve to neuroscientific material (Figure 1c). Sig-
nificant associations between percent of correct responses
and age, r = −.09, p < .001, R2 = .01, and years of experience
as a teacher, r = −.07, p < .001, R2 = .005, had completely
negligible correlation coefficients.

172 Volume 9—Number 3

 Ezequiel Gleichgerrcht et al.

Table 1
Percent Correct Answers to General Statements About the Brain Sorted by Overall Increasing Performance

Overall Peru Argentina Chile Other χ2 Cramér’s V

3. Boys have bigger brains than girls 14.1 14.8 15.1 11 12.5 6.02 0.04
23. Circadian rhythms (“body clock”) shift during 36.6 31 49.4 45.3 38.3 88.4*** 0.16
adolescence, causing pupils to be more tired during the
first lessons of the school day
6. When a brain region is damaged other parts of the brain 37.9 30.9 48.6 50.3 66.2 140.2*** 0.2
can take up its function
10. The brains of boys and girls develop at the same rate 38.7 38.7 49 31.3 23.8 60.4*** 0.09
8. The left and right hemispheres of the brain always work 45.1 51 39.6 28.3 46.2 106.0*** 0.18
together
14. Learning is not due to the addition of new cells to the 46.5 40 52.3 63.4 60 119*** 0.19
brain
26. Extended rehearsal of some mental processes can change 51.2 51 47.7 55 51.2 81.1*** 0.11
the shape and structure of some parts of the brain
24. Regular drinking of caffeinated drinks reduces alertness 55.7 47 70.4 71.6 76.2 191.5*** 0.24
18. Normal development of the human brain involves the 61.8 59 65.5 67.2 73.8 22.6*** 0.08
birth and death of brain cells
17. Academic achievement can be affected by skipping 64.3 60.9 65.7 74.9 70 41.9*** 0.11
breakfast
29. Production of new connections in the brain can continue 66.2 61.6 78.8 71.9 81.2 81.9*** 0.15
into old age
20. Vigorous exercise can improve mental function 68.6 73.5 58.4 61.4 58.8 69.2*** 0.14
13. Information is stored in the brain in a network of cells 75.8 77.8 73.1 70.2 80 17.7** 0.07
distributed throughout the brain
16. Learning occurs through modification of the brains’ 76.5 76.2 73.7 78.4 88.8 10.5* 0.06
neural connections
11. Brain development has finished by the time children 82.4 82.6 85.5 78.3 87.5 12.2** 0.06
reach secondary school
19. Mental capacity is hereditary and cannot be changed by 83.1 78.5 90.4 92.1 92.5 94.2*** 0.17
the environment or experience
31. There are sensitive periods in childhood when it is easier 89.7 89.7 84.2 94 92.5 30.4*** 0.09
to learn things
1. We use our brains 24 hr a day 92.5 91.1 94.9 94.6 97.5 17.5** 0.07
32. When we sleep, the brain shuts down 93.2 90.6 97.1 98.5 98.8 66.7*** 0.14
27. Individual learners show preferences for the mode in 96.1 96.1 94 97.7 97.5 10.6* 0.06
which they receive information (e.g., visual, auditory,
kinesthetic)

Note: Correct and incorrect statements were balanced. Higher values indicate better performance (i.e., correct statements marked as correct and incorrect statements
marked as incorrect). Item order numbers correspond to original list by Dekker et al. (2012).
*p = .05. **p = .01. ***p < .001.

Table 1 summarizes the overall and by-country percent
of correct answers for each general statement. The general
observation was that performance on specific facts about
brain anatomy and functioning (i.e., items 3, 6, 8, 10, 14, 23)
was generally poor, with less than 50% of the teachers giving
the correct answer. On the contrary, teachers obtained
much higher scores on items related with everyday effects
likely to be observable by educators, including exercise,
breakfast, and learning/development, among others. The
most remarkable differences between the answers of teach-
ers from different countries, as revealed by effect sizes, were
on assertions about brain damage (item 6), neurogenesis
(item 14), left-right lateralization (item 8), and biological
clock (item 23). Coincidentally, these were some of the items
with the worst performance. Besides an expected degree of
variability, no striking differences were found in the patterns
of response across the countries.
Neuromyths
For the overall sample, we found that teachers failed to iden-
tify 50.7% (SD = 13.8%) of neuromyths on average, 11.3%
(SD = 13.4%) of which were marked as do not know. As
shown in Figure 2a, a significant difference, F(3,3447 ) = 76.4,
p < .001, Cohen’s d = 0.52, was found across countries for
the number of neuromyths identified as valid, with Peruvian
respondents exhibiting the highest rate of errors compared
with all other countries (p < .001). Post hoc comparison of
performance on neuromyth statements between all other

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 Educational Neuromyths Among Latin American Teachers

were related to the supposedly brain-enhancing effect of

stimulus-rich environments (item 21), the positive impact
of coordination exercises on literacy (item 25) and left-right
hemispheric integration (item 30). In relation with the latter,
approximately 3 in 4 teachers still believe in the distinction
of right versus left brain learners (item 9) and almost 7 in
10 teachers support the idea that we only use 10% of our
brain (item 7). Quite remarkably, 9 of the 12 myths that were
actually inaccurate were believed by more than half of the
teachers.
We retrieved the rates of belief for each neuromyth from
the United Kingdom and Netherlands samples of teachers
surveyed by Dekker et al. (2012) and obtained an average
for comparison purposes with our sample (see rightmost
column of Table 2). We identified an overall similar transcon-
tinental pattern of responses. The most remarkable differ-
ences relate to second-language acquisition (item 2), with
more Latin American than European teachers believing that
simultaneous bilingualism may be detrimental for language
Fig. 2. Mean (SEM) percent neuromyths identified as valid (i.e., development; on the contrary, more European than Latin
worse performance) (a) across teachers in different countries; (b) American respondents believe education may be unable to
across teachers working in different levels (EC = early childhood; remediate developmental learning difficulties (item 28).
ES = elementary school; HS = high school; HE = higher education);
and (c) between teachers who stated they have read general science
texts (GST), primary scientific literature (PSL), or neuroscientific DISCUSSION
material (NM), and those who did not.
This study investigated neuroscientific literacy and belief in
countries was not significant (all p > .05). As shown in neuromyths among 3,451 Latin American teachers, espe-
Figure 2b, teachers working at different levels of education cially from Argentina, Chile, and Peru, but also from other
had similar performance, and the significant difference countries in the region, looking at overall and by-country
found had a remarkably smaller effect size, F(3,3447 ) = 5.67, trends. The association of brain knowledge with teachers’
p = .001, Cohen’s d = 0.14. The comparison of neuromyths access to popular science readings, primary scientific liter-
correctly identified by teachers who stated they read gen- ature, and neuroscientific material was also examined.
eral texts about science, t(2892 ) = 3.23, p = .001, Cohen’s Concerning general knowledge about the brain, we found
d = 0.12, or primary scientific literature, t(2916 ) = 2.48, that more than 50% of teachers responded to 2 out of 3 asser-
p = .01, Cohen’s d = 0.09, rendered significant differences tions correctly, mostly those featuring concepts or obser-
with negligible effect sizes. Importantly, having had previous vations that relate to everyday experiences they may be
access to material about neuroscience had no effect on the able to gather from the classroom. Instead, more factual
ability to correctly identify neuromyths, t(2755 ) = 1.5, p = .16, information about brain structure and functioning proved
Cohen’s d = 0.05. No significant correlations were found to be more challenging. For neuromyths, we found that
between percent of neuromyths identified and age, r = .03, more than 50% of the teachers failed to identify 9 of the 12
p = .09, R2 < .0001, or years of experience as a teacher, r = .03, invalid statements as such. Overall, these figures are sim-
p = .09, R2 < .0001. A small significant correlation was found ilar to the patterns found by Dekker et al. (2012) among
between performance in general statements about the brain British and Dutch teachers, with a 70% correct response rate
and belief in neuromyths, r = .21, p < .001, R2 = .045. This found for general brain knowledge, and teachers believing in
same pattern was observed individually for each country, more than half of the myths. They also match response pat-
Argentina: r = .18, p < .001, R2 = .032; Chile: r = .15, p < .001, terns recently reported among Greek, Turkish, and Chinese
R2 = .021; and Peru: r = .30, p < .001, R2 = .09. teachers (Howard-Jones, 2014).
Table 2 summarizes the overall and by-country percent Relative to European countries, the Latin American sam-
of belief for each myth. Remarkably, myths about learning ple performed somewhat worse, likely as a result of limited
styles had very similar answers across countries, revealing access to material in Spanish. Within the region, Peruvian
regional trends concerning this topic. Other neuromyths teachers were at a relative disadvantage for general neuro-
that had strong belief rates and transnational consensus science literacy compared with colleagues from other Latin

174 Volume 9—Number 3

 Ezequiel Gleichgerrcht et al.

Table 2
Percent Belief for Each Neuromyth Sorted by Decreasing Strength of Belief

Overall Peru Argentina Chile Other χ2 Cramér’s V Dekker et al.

21. Environments that are rich in stimulus 92.2 91.4 87.8 98.5 97.5 52.6*** 0.12 75.5
improve the brains of pre-school children
15. Individuals learn better when they receive 90.5 90.6 85.8 95.2 86.2 30.7*** 0.09 94.5
information in their preferred learning style
(e.g., auditory, visual, and kinesthetic)
25. Exercises that rehearse coordination of 86 88.3 77.5 86.8 75 51.7*** 0.12 70.5
motor-perception skills can improve
literacy skills
30. Short bouts of coordination exercises can 77.9 77.8 73 81.3 87.5 16.0** 0.07 85
improve integration of left and right
hemispheric brain function
9. Differences in hemispheric dominance (left 73.3 74.7 57.9 81.3 73.3 245.8*** 0.19 88.5
brain, right brain) can help explain
individual differences among learners
5. It has been scientifically proven that fatty 71.1 76 58.3 66.6 58.8 80.6*** 0.15 61.5
acid supplements (omega-3 and omega-6)
have a positive effect on academic
achievement
12. There are critical periods in childhood 68.8 67 71 74.2 66.2 13.2 ∗∗ 0.06 42.5
after which certain things can no longer be
learned
7. We only use 10% of our brain 61 67.5 56.1 41.5 60 141*** 0.2 47
22. Children are less attentive after consuming 51.4 56.3 31 51.5 55 113.3*** 0.18 56
sugary drinks and/or snacks
2. Children must acquire their native language 38.9 50 15.6 19.7 31.4 336.4*** 0.31 21.5
before a second language is learned. If they
do not do so neither language will be fully
acquired
28. Learning problems associated with 22.6 27.6 18.5 9.5 10 102.5*** 0.17 47.5
developmental differences in brain function
cannot be remediated by education
4. If students do not drink sufficient amounts 9.4 11.2 5.6 6 15 31.2*** 0.1 22.5
of water (= 6–8 glasses a day) their brains
shrink

Note: Higher values indicate stronger beliefs in each myth. Item order numbers correspond to original list by Dekker et al. (2012).
**p = .01. ***p < .001.

American countries. The poorer performance of Peruvian
teachers was nonetheless mild, and it may be reflecting the
more diverse array of teachers surveyed in the larger sample
of participants recruited from that country.
Professors working in higher education had slight supe-
rior performance compared to teachers in early childhood,
elementary, and high school levels. This is possibly due to
the fact that most higher education teachers in our sample
were from psychology and related degree programs and
had previously undertaken courses in basic neuroscience.
Remarkably, however, teachers in higher education did not
exhibit superior performance in responding to neuromyths.
The same pattern was observed for teachers who stated they
read popular science articles, primary scientific articles, or
even neuroscience material specifically: their neuroscience
literacy is higher than in teachers who do not engage in
such readings, but this does not translate to reduced belief
in neuromyths. What is more, a significant association was
found between performance on general statements about
the brain and belief in neuromyths, revealing that teachers
who know more about the brain are also the ones who
will more likely believe in invalid assertions about brain
research and its applications. Importantly, this correlation
was replicated when looking at each country independently,
but characterized by very small effect sizes, suggesting that
the association between these two variables may not be
as direct. Still, this finding is in line with previous studies
(Dekker et al., 2012) reporting that the best predictor of
belief in neuromyths was general knowledge about the
brain. What these findings are revealing is that teachers are

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 Educational Neuromyths Among Latin American Teachers
having a difficult time identifying valid and invalid assertions
about the brain.
This finding may be, in part, the result of teachers’
eagerness to increase their neuroscience literacy (Pickering
& Howard-Jones, 2007). In our study, 60.9% of teachers
claimed that they read general articles about science and
71% say they read primary scientific articles. In addition,
more than half of the sample stated that they have had access
to material on the brain and learning, specifically. These
figures are without a doubt inflated and shed light on part of
the problem: teachers are still struggling to identify the qual-
ity of their sources. From our experiences working in over
a dozen countries in Latin America, it is extremely unlikely
that almost 3 in 4 teachers are reading primary scientific
articles, for example. Databases for journal access are gener-
ally restricted and unavailable to teachers, most articles are
published in English, and the majority of teachers have not
had training in research methods or how to read scientific
reports. What material these teachers are actually reading
is perhaps the key factor to explain some of the response
patterns found in this study and deserves further research.
The overall findings of this study nonetheless demonstrate
that accessing neuroscientific-related information provides
no advantage in terms of neuroscientific literacy for teachers
in Latin America, despite the source of information being
accessed, and their ability to identify said source as primary,
secondary, or tertiary literature.
These results therefore raise the issue of the scientific
illiteracy of the teacher population in Latin America. The
growing interest of teachers in informing their pedagogical
practice with scientific evidence from brain research high-
lights the need to redesign teacher training programs in
Latin America to include basic science literacy and a basic
understanding on how to read science literature. Those
abilities could help teachers gain critical thinking skills that
would allow them, in turn, to approach science with better
preparation and therefore base their practice on sound
scientific evidence rather than simpler, more attractive and
easier-to-understand—but inaccurate—information.
These results also raise the issue of the inadequate
communication between research and practice, between
scientists and teachers, and between neuroscience and
education. They imply the need to find proper transla-
tional efforts that can build bridges between neuroscientific
research and the pedagogical practice. In many cases,
these neuromyths are the result of the lack of translational
efforts (Daniel, 2012) or of inadequate translational efforts
(Daniel & Poole, 2009). Therefore, the need for transla-
tion that (1) is accessible to teachers and (2) does not lose
any of the meaning of the original research it synthesizes
is highlighted.
The lack of access to content in Spanish may also be
a contributor to this lack of adequate knowledge. Most
176
neuroscience content is written in English, and English pro-
ficiency in Latin America is relatively low. At least partly,
the proliferation of neuromyths can be explained by lack of
access to quality research, which is almost always written in
English. This highlights the need for (1) more funding for
local research and (2) the translation into Spanish of qual-
ity research written in English. However, it must be noted
that our findings reflect patterns also found in English speak-
ing countries (Dekker et al., 2012). Thus, while developing
language-accessible materials to members of non-English
speaking cultures is an important goal, it is by no means a
panacea for a lack of scientific literacy or overly technical and
exclusionary scientific jargon in this area for materials aimed
at teachers and educational policy makers.
There are some caveats to this study that should be taken
into consideration when contemplating future research in
this line. Perhaps the most obvious limitation is related to
the sample: we focused primarily on three countries to infer
generalizations about a whole continent. For example, we
purposefully excluded Brazilian teachers, whose dominant
language is Portuguese rather than Spanish, to avoid the
effect of any linguistic differences in the survey used for
this study. Our sample size is nonetheless considerable and
our results consistent with other international samples.
Nonetheless, we encourage researchers to work with other
populations to incorporate more diversity to their partici-
pant samples. Another important issue to consider for future
studies relates to the marked asymmetries in rural versus
urban settings in many Latin American countries. We used
the survey originally designed by Dekker et al. (2012) so we
could compare belief in neuromyths with European teachers,
but future research should delve deeper into issues that may
be associated with misconceptions as a result of local trends.
We thus invite researchers and teachers to work together to
identify local factors that could influence beliefs of teachers
and design ad hoc measures to test the propagation of
such ideas.
It is also important to consider certain response biases
inherent to the structure of the questionnaire used in our
study, and the strategies we implemented in order to min-
imize such biases. For instance, respondents were offered
the do not know choice for all items, in order to minimize
a forced choice (a.k.a. insufficient category) bias. We also
randomized the order of items across participants, so that
response fatigue would have less of an impact on specific
items presented toward the end of the questionnaire. In this
sense, we celebrate recent studies confirming high preva-
lence of neuromyths among teachers using new instruments
(Tardif, Doudin, & Meylan, 2015).
Crucially, two sources of concern arise for the demo-
graphic/background questions, particularly those referring
to teachers’ access to literature. One the one hand is the
fact, as discussed above, that teachers may not know
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 Ezequiel Gleichgerrcht et al.

what “primary scientific articles” involves, or the use of and to responsibly translate promising scientific findings to
“information on learning and the brain” may be too vague. usable knowledge for education.
On the other hand is the issue of response desirability,
which may have inflated teachers’ positive responses to
their culture of accessing neuroscience-related informa- NOTE
tion. We believe these are important measures that are
1 Here, we note a slight variation from the nomenclature
worthy of further research, as understanding teachers’
used by the authors of the original questionnaire. In their
attitudes toward scientific information can help design
study, Dekker et al. (2012) present 15 neuromyths, three
more efficient strategies aimed at improving teacher
of which are “correct.” In our interpretation of the defini-
training.
tion established by the OECD (2002), a neuromyth is per
se an incorrect statement; for this reason we decided to
just consider the 12 neuromyths that were actually incor-
CONCLUSIONS
rect for that category.
Taken together, the results from our study confirm a high
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