I collect on this page links to various research announcements, news stories, and op-eds related to education, especially mathematics education — which state the obvious. Short URL of this page: http://goo.gl/5AkBgc

• …Academically challenged students do worse in online than in face-to-face courses, Brookings, 26 October 2017. Quotes Promises and pitfalls of online education, by Eric Bettinger and Susanna Loeb, Evidence Speaks Reports, Vol 2, #15, June 9, 2017.
• Having children carries big pay penalty, says think tank,  BBC, 04 January 2017.
• Confident fathers have happier children, says study, BBC, 23 November 2016.
• Children also gossip. “Have you heard the latest?? Even 5-year-olds engage in ‘pro-social gossip’, study finds: bit.ly/1ThY9ig“.  Max Planck Society‏ @maxplanckpress May 02, 2016
• The robust and significant correlation between numeracy and wealth.
• Poor ‘lose out in scramble for primary school places’. “The poorest people are losing out on places at the best primary schools in England, research suggests on the day parents receive news of allocations.” BBC, 18 April 2016.
• Matthew Inglis:  “Me and @greiffenhagen found that writing on a blackboard requires more arm  movements than writing on a whiteboard. pic.twitter.com/VSgWcxyPKl.”  Israel Gelfand explained that to me 20 years ago, see my blogpost of 2010 Psychophysiology of blackboard teaching.
• Teachers in deprived schools ‘more likely to be inexperienced’.  The Guardian, 9 March 2016; by Sally Weale, Education correspondent.
• The feelings we get when we wear certain kinds of clothing may lead to different behaviors—altering decision making. Perhaps the best popular science magazines in the world, Nautilus could be safely relied on for a steady supply of scientifically confirmed statements of the obvious. And have you ever had a chance to wear real military uniform?
• A fifth of adults have forgotten how to do fractions or percentages. The Guardian, 7 March 2016.
• High London rents pricing out young teachers, says NUT.  BBC, by Judith Burns, 07 March 2016.
• Completing high school appears to have a similar impact on mortality to giving up smoking: Krueger PM, Tran MK, Hummer RA, Chang VW (2015) Mortality Attributable to Low Levels of Education in the United States. PLoS ONE 10(7): e0131809. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0131809
• Symbolic Numerical Magnitude Processing Is as Important to Arithmetic as Phonological Awareness Is to Reading, by Vanbinst K, Ansari D, Ghesquière P, De Smedt B,  PLoS ONE 11(3) (2016): e0151045. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0151045
• Emolument.com found that “alumni from Sheffield, Brunel or Leicester University are less likely to be wooed by big banks or consultancies than their Oxbridge counterparts […] and therefore more eager launch their own business or joining budding start-ups, thereby climbing through the ranks more quickly and reaching leadership positions in smaller, more nimble structures.” Independent, Ben Moshinsky, 29 Feb 2016,
• Through their networks of friends, singles are strengthening society’s social bonds. Perhaps the best popular science magazines in the world, Nautilus could be safely relied on for a steady supply of scientifically confirmed statements of the obvious.
• ‘Britain is peddling a broken exam system’. In  The Telegraph online, by Jack Elsom, 1:50PM GMT 29 Feb 2016. A quote: “The current exam model equates intelligence with writing and memory, when this is simply not true.“
• Families ‘cheating’ school admissions system. In  The Telegraph on-line, 29 Feb 2016. [As a friend told me: “We, middle class  Mumsnet mums,  are frequently accused of playing the system. Of course we do! What else do they expect from us?” –AB.]
• Teens do better in science when they know Einstein and Curie also struggled. A news story based on a press release from the American Psychological Association: Learning about struggles of famous scientists may help students succeed in science.
• Is tech making attention spans shorter? BBC iWonder: Why can’t I concentrate? [My personal comment: when, many years ago, I came to teach in an American university, I discovered that my students had attention span of the kind that back in the Soviet Union I had seen only in auxiliary schools for children with learning disabilies. Explanatiiton? There were no TV commercials in Russia of that time. And life was boring. For good attention span, you need boring life. — AB]
• Math Anxiety Doesn’t Equal Poor Math Performance. Wang et al. Psychological Science December 2015 vol. 26 no. 12 1863-1876.  Full Text (PDF)
• A Tech Boom Aimed at the Few, Instead of the World, by Farhad Manjoo, 20 May 2015, The New York Times.
• Novel Finding: Reading Literary Fiction Improves Empathy, Scientific American, By Julianne Chiaet on October 4, 2013.