Archive for the 'Giovani' Category

It is often said, “Just focus on playing,” or “Concentrate on what you know how to do,” or even “Mistakes happen in the competition; the important thing is not to avoid mistakes but to refocus on the task.”

Of course, these phrases and many others are spoken to athletes who make sports their profession. They train for many hours every day, are coached by experienced trainers, and participate in international competitions with the intention of expressing themselves to the best of their abilities.

However, despite many efforts, it is difficult for everyone not to feel the tension that precedes the start of these important events. These are the occasions when these young individuals go all out, knowing that this is their opportunity. There will be others, but this one that is approaching is one of those.

They all know that they need to focus on the task at hand, the one they have prepared for. The issue, however, is that their entire sports and social world expects to see if they are truly as good as they are claimed to be, or for the more experienced, if they will repeat past performances.

It is not enough to know how to concentrate or to have experienced this stress condition several times in order to control it and even turn it into a faithful friend that does not betray you.

Once these abilities are possessed, the final step is represented by the desire to experience this stressful situation, the pleasure of feeling tense but convinced that there will be a solution no matter what problem arises. The pleasure of living this stress, that is the state of mind to dive into, feeling comfortable in uncomfortable situations, desiring to face the opponent and challenge them to the end.

So, let’s immerse ourselves in stress and experience it fully with joy!

Arnold L. Glass & Mengxue Kang (2019) Dividing attention in the classroom reduces exam performance,Educational Psychology, 39:3, 395-408.

When students are allowed to use phones, tablets or other devices for non-academic purposes during classroom lectures, they perform worse in end-of-term exams, according to a new Rutgers University–New Brunswick study.

The study, published in Educational Psychology, also found that students who don’t use electronic devices in class, but attend lectures where their use is permitted, also do worse – suggesting that phone and tablet use damages the group learning environment.

“Many dedicated students think they can divide their attention in the classroom without harming their academic success – but we found an insidious effect on exam performance and final grades,” said lead researcher Arnold Glass, a professor of psychology at Rutgers–New Brunswick’s School of Arts and Sciences. “To help manage the use of devices in the classroom, teachers should explain to students the damaging effect of distractions on retention – not only on themselves, but for the whole class.”

Glass, working with graduate student Mengxue Kang, led the experiment to test whether allowing students to divide their attention between electronic devices and the lecturer affected performance on tests taken during class as well as the end-of-term exam.

The experiment included 118 Rutgers–New Brunswick cognitive psychology students during one term of their course. Laptops, phones and tablets were banned during half of the lectures and permitted during the other half. When devices were allowed, students were asked to record whether they had used them for non-academic purposes during the lectures.

The study found that having a device didn’t lower students’ scores in comprehension tests within lectures but did lower their scores in the end-of-term exam by at least 5 percent, or half a grade. This finding shows for the first time that the main effect of divided attention in the classroom is on long-term retention.

In addition, when the use of electronic devices was allowed in class, performance was also poorer for students who did not use devices as well as for those who did.

This is the first-ever study in an actual classroom showing a causal relationship between distractions from an electronic device and subsequent exam performance.