title: The principles and practices of educational neuroscience: Comment on Bowers (2016).
abstract: In his recent critique of Educational Neuroscience, Bowers argues that neuroscience has no role to play in informing education, which he equates with classroom teaching. Neuroscience, he suggests, adds nothing to what we can learn from psychology. In this commentary, we argue that Bowers' assertions misrepresent the nature and aims of the work in this new field. We suggest that, by contrast, psychological and neural levels of explanation complement rather than compete with each other. Bowers' analysis also fails to include a role for educational expertise-a guiding principle of our new field. On this basis, we conclude that his critique is potentially misleading. We set out the well-documented goals of research in Educational Neuroscience, and show how, in collaboration with educators, significant progress has already been achieved, with the prospect of even greater progress in the future. (PsycINFO Database Record
authors.affiliation: Graduate School of Education, University of Bristol.
authors.forename: Paul A
authors.initials: PA
authors.lastname: Howard-Jones
authors.affiliation: Department of Educational Psychology, University of Minnesota.
authors.forename: Sashank
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Varma
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, University of Western Ontario.
authors.forename: Daniel
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Ansari
authors.affiliation: Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience, University College London.
authors.forename: Brian
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Butterworth
authors.affiliation: Faculty of Psychology and Educational Sciences, University of Leuven.
authors.forename: Bert
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: De Smedt
authors.affiliation: Centre for Neuroscience in Education, Department of Psychology, University of Cambridge.
authors.forename: Usha
authors.initials: U
authors.lastname: Goswami
authors.affiliation: Centre for Educational Neuroscience, University College London.
authors.forename: Diana
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Laurillard
authors.affiliation: Centre for Educational Neuroscience, Birkbeck, University of London.
authors.forename: Michael S C
authors.initials: MS
authors.lastname: Thomas
mesh_terms: D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D009488:Neurosciences / Q000193:education*