Am I burning myself out?

[Rakuen Growlithe]

Finding the correct learning style can vstly improve your ability to learn WHILST reducing stress over wrong methods

Far as I heard that's just nonsense with no real evidence to back it up.

[Hargan]

Rakuen, as someone whose marks improved from studying less of the time, and giving myself more time to be active, I'm gonna admit finding out I was kinetic studier did help.

Way too late unfortunately, but it did.

Now arguably, this could be due to a large manner of reasons (increased bloodflow, etc) and I can agree with that, but I can tell you that I found it helpful. And let's face it, anything to help with studying and stress relief is a good thing to prevent burn out. So if a current method isn't working; is it more harmful to try a new method, or keep going and risk burn out?

This is all per person, so feel free not to take my advice. I have no problem people arguing and doing their own thing. I'm just offering something that actually did help me.

[Rakuen Growlithe]

I'm sure there are different study methods that work for different people (and exercise breaks are recommended) but my objection was to the idea of visual learners vs audio learners or whatever else.

[Raven Song]

My mom got her teaching degree from the then JEC (Johannesburg Education Campus/Centre). I remember reading through her notes:

There are three basic kinds of learner (Some students may be a combination of the above)
Visual - Reading or seeing the work written out
Audio - Must hear the work spoken to retain it (My mom is this. She got through the entire of college by making herself read the words out loud. She even started recording it and listening to it on the bus)
Kinectic - must be physically doing something during the process of learning - be it writing the work down or movement (some students with serious problems at special needs facilities are encouraged to dance or draw while studying) - I am this kind of learner. If I have to sit in a lecture and listen to someone nothing goes into my brain. Allow me to doodle during the lecture I will pass with flying colours.

Finding the right method of study depends on the person. Like I said, you could be a combination of both. I learn really well if I have music in my ears, not because I am a audio learner, but because I am also a visual learner and music stops me from being distracted to other sounds.

I know Rakuen is against all these "pseudo-science" things (I have to bite my tongue often... and trust me, the day is coming when I'm writing a nice big fat vent of my own on it) but the results are there. Both my mom and my aunt are teachers and have degrees in both teaching and psychology. I have seen case studies, I have read the notes.

I truly think you just need to find what works best for you, and life will be easier.

[Rakuen Growlithe]

I know Rakuen is against all these "pseudo-science" things (I have to bite my tongue often... and trust me, the day is coming when I'm writing a nice big fat vent of my own on it) but the results are there. Both my mom and my aunt are teachers and have degrees in both teaching and psychology. I have seen case studies, I have read the notes.

I'll look forward to the vent. Important to note that some fields are less reliable than others (and I have a whole host of issues with the way science is done, reported and replicated) but psychology is a particularly troubling one. Just recently, amongst other problems, there have been reports that an entire subfield in psychology could be nonsense.
http://www.slate.com/articles/health_an ... ingle.html

[Raven Song]

I could have debunked that whole thing in one morning. I would have given up regardless of what I ate

[Hargan]

I'm sure there are different study methods that work for different people (and exercise breaks are recommended) but my objection was to the idea of visual learners vs audio learners or whatever else.

I'll look forward to the vent. Important to note that some fields are less reliable than others (and I have a whole host of issues with the way science is done, reported and replicated) but psychology is a particularly troubling one. Just recently, amongst other problems, there have been reports that an entire subfield in psychology could be nonsense. .

Firstly.... That's teaching, not psychology. Two different schools ;3 And the fact that I have seen this myself from teaching, actually teaching in a class Rakuen, where you have not shown any expertise there nor experience, I'm going to point out that it actually happens. There are three learning styles. Which is why classroom activities range from teachers speaking, students reading and activities done. All in a single lesson in many times. Think back to your own school history, and of times that has happened in your class. Which did you find most productive? Working on your own reading? Listening to the teacher? Filling in the equations yourself and understanding there?

Again, I learned too late, but I at least understand it now. Regrets be regrets, nothing I can do to change the past.

Secondly: You get psychologists out to push agendas. You get socialists, doctors, and even scientists out to push agendas, wherein they will ignore all other knowledge to the contrary to show it is correct. Should we disregard ALL science because someone in the field of science said the world was flat? Or the sun revolved around the earth? Shall we throw out all the knowledge we have garnered? No. Because when it is proven wrong with facts, it is taken out, and the truth is replaced. That's how science works. So if one of Hawkins' theories are wrong, we don't disregard all of them. Because they're theories. Theories. Not facts. Not truths. Assumptions based on results.

We can't live in just what we know for a fact, because then we never go further. We never explore, we never know we're wrong or right about ideas. But in order to go further, we have to make right and wrong observations. Both paint a picture. And this is the problem:

People are afraid of their theories being wrong, and have manipulated data and such like to prove themselves right

Now, the problem with this is that people become defensive, and then go all out to prove themselves right, instead of saying: this is actually how things don't work. Look at the recent debacle with Addyi. A drug that is dangerous, and properly dangerous, with little positive effect, was pushed into the open market. Shall we now trust no more drugs? No more pharamaceuticals?

Just because one THEORY is wrong Rakuen, doesn't mean the whole ship is. Chill out, and understand it's not an all or nothing situation.

[Rakuen Growlithe]

Moved all off-topic stuff here.

And the fact that I have seen this myself from teaching, actually teaching in a class Rakuen, where you have not shown any expertise there nor experience, I'm going to point out that it actually happens.

Eh, I've done lab demonstrations (showing and looking after) for second year microbiology students, first year medical students and the public (in South Africa and Austria) and co-supervised an honours student. Not like school teaching and not ongoing (aside from the supervision part which lasted 6 months I think) but not completely unfamiliar area. Also volunteered at a science centre on weekends for a few weeks.

Secondly: You get psychologists out to push agendas. You get socialists, doctors, and even scientists out to push agendas, wherein they will ignore all other knowledge to the contrary to show it is correct. Should we disregard ALL science because someone in the field of science said the world was flat?

I never said anything like that. I said a lot of stuff is done badly and certain fields are notorious for bad work. Psychology is one that is known to have poor quality studies that are seldom reproducible. It's been a major topic of the past two or three years. It has also been a problem in molecular biology but there are intrinsic reasons why such fields are more reliable.

So if one of Hawkins' theories are wrong, we don't disregard all of them. Because they're theories. Theories. Not facts. Not truths. Assumptions based on results.

Should be careful to distinguish scientific theories from public use of the term theory. It's a bait and switch tactic beloved of creationists. In short scientific theories are most reliable class of ideas and explain a large portion of published data and allow predictions of future experiments.

Now, the problem with this is that people become defensive, and then go all out to prove themselves right, instead of saying: this is actually how things don't work. Look at the recent debacle with Addyi. A drug that is dangerous, and properly dangerous, with little positive effect, was pushed into the open market. Shall we now trust no more drugs? No more pharamaceuticals?

Don't know about that specifically but I am well aware of the problems. Ben Goldacre published a whole book on the problems with the pharmaceutical industry (Bad Pharma and I highly recommend reading it). Obviously there are plenty of good drugs out there although they have side effects. If they didn't, that would probably mean they didn't do anything. When there are problems it means that something needs to be done about them. Like ensuring all drug trials are published.

Just because one THEORY is wrong Rakuen, doesn't mean the whole ship is. Chill out, and understand it's not an all or nothing situation.

Again, careful with the term theory. I didn't say it was all or nothing. I'm saying to take into account how reliable the data is. In many cases, psychological and sociological studies are not reliable. This is due to low sample sizes, complex phenomena that are being studied, incorrect use of statistics and poor study design.

[Galahad]

What Rakuen may possibly have been alluding to (or perhaps he was not) was not that psychology as a broad field is as a well that is poisoned when one drop of poison is introduced (that is, the entire field is undermined by a single failure) but rather that psychology's whole methodology - how it "works" - is based on subjectivity and philosophy rather than on objectivity and empirical data, as physics, biology, mathematics and other disciplines are.

I agree to an extent, yet applied psychology certainly has value, due to its close implicit connection with neurology. It is pure or speculative psychology that I find overly subjective and not "proveable".

As this would fall under the subdiscipline of applied psychology, as long as it has empirical evidence (experiments, trials etc.), I agree that perhaps these methods work in practice. They work, and so they can be recommended.

[Hargan]

Ok, let me try it this way, approach from a different angle

Firstly, teaching: Yes, but I was trained for 3 months straight in a strict teaching regime before being allowed to teach with Stop Hunger Now SA, wherein for 8 months, taught for 3 hours after school as though we were teachers. Hell, we weren't supposed to, but we even covered teachers who were sick. And in that time, I can assure you, that it's not some psychological bullshit. There are 3 learning types. That's my first point. It's not a psychological issue. It's a teaching issue. That's my original point. If you had been trained in teaching formally (as I am going throguh courses now myself), I am certain you would be taught this. You might even observe this by having a class of your own, which I think would be the best way to see it for yourself. Until then, alas, I doubt there is much I can say to prove it to you.

The way psychology is supposed to work, SUPPOSED TO WORK, is through the investigation and application of theories. Not every theory works for every situation, not every theory works the same with every person. So let's show how I was trained to test for theories. Yes, I was trained and taught how to do this part of psychology (research psychology) and I will explain, from mym memory how this is supposed to work. Tell me if it doesn't sound like empirical science.

You begin with a theory: All depressive people want a hug. (Terrible example theory, it's 6:15 am in the morning, cut me some slack ) You then need to get a group of volunteers in order to test the theory. The three groups needed for this are: 1 - Control group (if a test does not have a control, disregard it). 2- Theory group (The group you will be testing your theory on). 3- A group of non-depressed sufferers who will be hugged (This is important, as it gives a base for the general populace without depression).

The control group will be questioned how they feel, not hugged, and questioned if there is a change in their attitude after a small amount of time
The theory group will be questioned how they are, offered a hug, and then questioned after. (It will be of interest to note those that decline the hug's attitudes before and after too)
The baseline group will be questioned how they feel, and offered a hug, and questioned after (Note how all three still get all the questioning statements)

Now here, you'll notice that there is a request for a hug. Not one forced on people. Why? Ethical standards. Psychology has to literally stand on eggshells when dealing with research such as this, as any break of trust to the researchers can lead to participants no longer willing to work with the researchers. The researchers here must also not be the ones to hug. They could alter the information by changing the hugging styles. The people chosen must use a consistent hugging style too, as this will help keep their base addition to the equation constant. Each person's hugging style must be duly noted and tracked, and especially deviance from it.

Finally, since depression is an ongoing issue, we can choose to have this done in increments, to see if hugging has a long term effect as viable as the short term effect.

This was a crappy topic But, what I'm trying to show is how this is supposed to be done. It's methodical, everything is noted, everything is repeatable. But are the results? See, that's the issue with psychology. Transference rates are a major indicator of how well this will hold up. Every culture, every country, every religion would be a different situation. The higher the transference rates are, the better the chance of it being true. That's why they must be repeated. It's not a train wreck if the results are different. It indicates something else is at play. Social, economic, geographic, cultural, religious or any other possible factor could be at play (Hence why my topic was such a bad one). The more of those you can even out, the fewer of those that interfere with the results and the greater the transference rate indicates how close this is to truth.

So why is this so hard to do in psychology? Why does it keep getting the rap for bad transerence rates and all this. Why is it viewed as unpredictable? Allow me to answer with a simple answer that is fully applicable to this community: "Everyone's fursona is different". Humans are not the same. For every topic, we have, at least, three sides: Those in agreement, those against, those neutral, all on a varied scale. Some in agreement don't agree with all aspects, those against don't disagree with every aspect.

Then, we have even more factors. Ever woke up crummy? Ever woke up happy? Ever stubbed your toe changing your mood? Ever get caught in traffic so bad it changes your mood? Ever feel like changing yourself? Ever feel like joining up a new community? Ever feel different to what you were before? Ever have incidents in your life that change you forever? Humans.... they are malleable. Too malleable. Their only constant is that they will change. Certain aspects may never change (personality is one that usually stays strong), but the person can, and will.

Now measure that.

Peedict everything a person will do.

Because that's what people expect psychologists to do. Don't believe me, look up cases of psychologists being taken to court for the actions of their clients, becasuse they should have known what someone was going to do. The truth is, we don't. We only know what people tell us. And people lie. Not everyone lies all the time, but even little white lies (I'm fine, when you feel down) can change a whole perception of a person.

Now, here's the issue: People taking these ideas for fact when a study has only been done once. If I can't find a replication of a study by another group with similar results, I ignore it. Because transference rates are considered 0. However, the minute the media gets a hold of it, they will bring it out that it is true, and that everything must change now because of it. This is where the dangers of psychology come to light.

Did you know IQ tests were used as part of an agenda to keep institutionalized racism? Because the test was set for one group with their culture in mind, they'd fail due to cultural differences. Want an example? Let's say a test is set so that the answer to the question: Will you take a wallet to the police; is yes. A common logical step in order to get it to the owner. Now put that question here in South Africa. Who here believes the wallet and ALL its contents will reach the onwer if given to the police? Because I don't. And that would mark me a lower in my IQ than someone else. (This is why I ignore ALL IQ tests. I hate the damned things and how people follow them blindly. This is personal opinion seeping in here.)

So now we have unscrupulous researchers working within the confines to push their agenda forward (If you want examples, I'm jsut gonna post up tl;dr as a youtube channel, go listen to all the ones he has videos on. He has links, referrences, and studies things in depth.) The media loves these people, as they are as sensationalistic as things go. And then the falsehood gets written into fact as a study has proven it (people take things anything an academic has to say way too frakking seriously and with too much reliance on them). With this in mind, you can see where failings begin and end.

People

Psychology is a study that tries so damned hard to give us base understandings of something so complex, we can't even agree on definitions (Define intelligence is my favourite example).

However, psychology as a form of mdecinal practice is something much different. I've just spent 45 minutes typing this out. Yeesh. So not putting a tl;dr for this

Psychology as a practice is much different. The goal, style and methods all depend on what form of psychology you study. And each has their place. For example, my favourite route, the person centered throries created by Carl Rogers, but later refined through the years, is great on dealing with certain aspects of a person, but Cognitive Behavioural Therapy works better in other. For example, trying to get someone to stop smoking would work better using a stimuli and rewards/ punishment therapy than just asking how a person feels. Except, it much change for some people, wherein anxiety is revealed to be the reason for smoking, not addiction, and thus anxiety must be reduced lest the smoking be removed and replaced with another form. See how in one example, I can argue against my own words? That's because everyone is unique.

Now, before anyone plays the Freud card, firstly:
He was around the victorian era, where people were much more sexually repressed than we are in this day and age. Things were very different in that era, and so were societies problems. No worries about global warming, no worries about nuclear weaponry, and interesting to note, the upper class still do try to appear better than everyone else. Nice little social example of transference through time.
Next, in his memoires, the oedipus complex was noted as his greatest failure. He himself, admitted he was wrong about such a controversial point. Now people, please stop treating it like truth.
Finally, his research did give us psycho-analysis: Tools to help psychologists in their research and understanding of the human being. Has it been revised? Yes, it needs to to keep up with society. Everything does. Does it still help? In many situations, yes. (I can never say all in psychology because of the temperament of the subjects in question.)

So what is the longwinded point I'm trying to make here? This is the point in question:

Human beings are highly unpredictable, yet people expect psychology to be able to pin point exact points of when this happens, when that happens, etc etc. However, in doing so, psychology has provided a wealth of information into how humans do work, even if it is regarded as a psuedo-science (again, the aim is full science, but humans). So what is the actual problem regarding psychology?

The actual problem is you.

Now, this isn't meant as an agressive statement, but as a point: No one fits the forms correctly. No one is perfect. No one can be described in just a few short sentences. Try to understand that psychology is not a pseudo-science, but instead one grappling with the toughest subject of all human history. They're unco-operative, opinionated, argumentative, kind, greedy, selfish, self-less, and on and on and on and on and on .................. What other science has to deal with something as annoying as that?

Theoretical physics (I know it's not called that, I'm typing for an hour straight now and head is hurting).

Particles changing their actions whether observed or not (or, as I like to call it, scientists trying to say that their theories are still true even when proven wrong ;3). And if we take the example of particles changing behaviour based on observance, we note that humans do the same. You wouldn't run a red light if a cop was there, but if there wasn't? And it was dark and late at night, with nobody else around? You might just very well. changing behaviour when observed and not.

So at the end of this, all I want to point out: Psychology as a science is an increasingly complex science that changes all the time, thanks to society changing, and thus the subjects changing. It is riddled with people pushing agendas of their own, manipulating the system and messing up results. That's why peer review, transference rates and so on and so fort are so important. To see the bias we ourselves cannot. But when there's agendas to push, theories to prove come hell or high water, or just people in general; the only statement you can make with 100% certainty of truth is: We are all human, at least for now.

An hour of typing. I'm done

[Raven Song]

See this guy ^ I like this guy.

I cant even write out my wall of text on pseudoscience because my brain is all fuzzy, and he spends an hour and write this.

Thank you Hargan.

[Rakuen Growlithe]

Wow, that is a lot of posting there and I'm not going to address each little thing but just the main points. First, I am well aware of how things are supposed to work, that wasn't an issue. That leaves 1) Learning styles and 2) Psychology in general. I will address them in reverse order since they are nested (teaching and methods of teaching is really a sort of subset of psychology).

Try to understand that psychology is not a pseudo-science, but instead one grappling with the toughest subject of all human history. They're unco-operative, opinionated, argumentative, kind, greedy, selfish, self-less, and on and on and on and on and on

That was sort of my point before. Psychology is attempting to study something very complicated that changes often. To do that you need to be very careful. In general, and for certain subsets, that seems to be done quite poorly. I understand all that but it doesn't change the core problem that many psychology results are unreliable. The point with the earlier link to Slate was that that wasn't an unreliable study, it was an unreliable field of study that had been going on for decades and now might all be nonsense. Obviously it's not all aspects of the field and not everything is nonsense but I never claimed that.

It's not a train wreck if the results are different. It indicates something else is at play.

Well... if you're interested in results that get to the truth of something then it is a train wreck because that work is useless. At best it's useful only in a very specific setting. We'd think it weird if there were a cake recipe which sometimes produced a cake, sometimes an old boot and sometimes an angry tiger. That would not be a good recipe. If psychological studies are giving different results every time then they just do not give useful information, apart from that whatever they are testing for is probably not real.

As for learning styles, they are at risk of the same problems that come with most psychology research. Ideally I'd want to see reviews of research into learning styles but I found them a bit tricky to find. What I did see was that not everyone agrees that they affect learning. For example, this study (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16094788) in 2005 did not find a difference in learning styles. (There's only the abstract there which also doesn't look like the best experimental design but, psychology right?). Others do find that accommodating "learning styles" helps. This one (https://www.researchgate.net/publicatio ... ical_Study), also from 2005, did find that and does seem to be designed a bit better. But the closest to a review was this article (http://www.scientificamerican.com/artic ... ogus-idea/) which says that there is little support for the concept. It mostly seems to be written as one guy for the idea versus one against unfortunately but maybe I can find something more objective later.

[Hargan]

I'll read your stuff on the learning styles there, and bring forward proof on the styles, a bit later; right now feeling light headed and bothersome, for obvious reasons Note to self, don't type an hour long post again

As for the psychology, it was more a general based, get everything off my chest on the topic. So not directed towards you Rakuen per se, but rather a holistic answer with the idea to get everything of my chest I mean, I understand where people come from with their views against psychology, those in the field themselves can so easilly see the problems. Hell, half of this was a rant directed at those who did muck this up for everyone. But as for sections becoming untrue? Yeah, I agree with ya. A lot of psychological theories have problems and arguments. Why do you think there are so many? Not even we can come to a full agreement (see again, define intelligence ) But when something is no longer true, and disproven with facts, it should definitely be taken so and we continue along a new path. After all, when we finally proved the world was round, we stopped teaching it was flat (save for those of the flat earth society). As a general rule, we changed direction as a society at whole, from one of one idea, to another of a proven idea. And so the endless march of getting things wrong, and learning what is right only later on, continues... Gotta love that about humanity

As for my comment about it not being a trainwreck? I'm... trying to be more positive and optemistic. So I'll fully accept that as my opinion, and that there are indeed problems with it. But, I'm still gonna try stay positive

Raven: Thanks. This is why I rarely post, because when I do, I start going

[Hargan]

Responses: First one is based off of PBL verses another form of teaching. Nice to know, but is that really relevent? Agreed, it makes the statement that this form of teaching is similar to that one, but I was focusing on student learning, not teaching methods. I know both have a role to play, yes, but at the moment, the focus was on one.

Third one: Citation needed >< I really want to read that one, especially, to see what they did, but I can't find it.

Second one: As I'm reading it: the focus is on the Gregor version, but is it translatable? Secondly, I think this is a problem that can't be explained simply. Because although I want to, and as noted above, really am trying desperately to, focus on purely student learning style, there's too much additional. Teaching styles, as covered in the transcript. But then we also get student determination, student ability to grasp said knowledge, etc etc etc.

I'm beginning to think one can't just simplify this away into broad statements. However, there is something from this I did pick out. If there's a method of study that you find easier, and that you enjoy/ are not stressed by, then that should be your prioritised method of study. I think that's the broadest, all-encompassing statement I can put forward from this argument on learning styles.

A running note: They never disprove the idea of learning styles. They argue against them as effective as they're made out to be, but they never disprove learning styles. That I find intriguing.