To our knowledge, this is the first study assessing the prevalence of neuromyths in Hungary, and the first study assessing pre-service teachers’ attitude to neuromyths in Central and Eastern Europe. Our results show that Hungarian pre-service teachers believe in most of the previously studied educational neuromyths.
4.1. Endorsement of Neuromyths and General Knowledge about the Brain
In total, 6 neuromyths were considered true by more than half of participants, and the mean error score (i.e., rate of incorrect answers) for all 10 NM statements was 56.9%. This value ranked the second highest in comparison with previous studies from other countries (
Table 6), only preceded by an Australian result (
Kim and Sankey 2018).
In our study, the most prevalent neuromyths among pre-service teachers were the following: “Exercises that rehearse co-ordination of motor-perception skills can improve literacy skills.” (89.7%); “Children have learning styles that are dominated by particular senses.” (82.1%) and “Short bouts of co-ordination exercises can improve integration of left and right hemispheric brain function.” (81.4%). The least prevalent neuromyth was the following: “Learning problems associated with developmental differences in brain function cannot be remediated by education.” (16.1%), which is consistent with the findings of multiple previous studies (
Dündar and Gündüz 2016;
Ferrero et al. 2016;
Papadatou-Pastou et al. 2017).
Interestingly, the neuromyths related to movement and motor training had the highest acceptance rate in our sample. As mentioned above, the most widely accepted neuromyth among Hungarian pre-service teachers was the false belief in the effect of motor coordination exercises on literacy, and not the myth related to learning styles, which was found to be the most prevalent in many other studies including in-service teachers (
Dekker et al. 2012;
Grospietsch and Mayer 2019;
Janati Idrissi et al. 2020;
Karakus et al. 2015) and pre-service teachers (
Ching et al. 2020;
Dündar and Gündüz 2016;
Kim and Sankey 2018). Another widely believed movement-related neuromyth is the presumed effect of coordination exercises on interhemispheric integration.
We posit that the high prevalence of movement-related neuromyths might be partly attributable to the strong presence and great popularity of various movement-based, perceptuomotor, sensorimotor and reflex integration therapies (e.g., Doman-Delecato therapy, INPP therapy, Ayres therapy, Planned Sensorimotor Therapy, Brain Gym) in Hungary. These type of therapies, which are considered to be controversial by many experts (reviewed by
Hyatt et al. 2009), have become widespread over the past decade in Hungary and are now available in practically every level of the public education system (
Szvatkó et al. 2021). The continuous promotion of such interventions in the mass media and social media, as well as in trainings and conferences available to in-service teachers on these topics also facilitate the dissemination of these misconceptions. We are aware of the fact that many lecturers at teacher training universities have completed trainings in one or more of the above mentioned alternative therapies. If such trainings supported their endorsement of misconceptions, it might affect their students’ (and thus, our study participants’) attitudes to such therapies and misdirect their future teaching practices. Further comparative studies should investigate this hypothesis.
Of the 13 GKAB statements, the mean score was above 50% in case of 10 statements and below 50% in case of 3 statements. Statements with the highest rates of correct answers were the following: “There are sensitive periods in childhood when it’s easier to learn things.” (93.1%) and “Individual learners show preferences for the mode in which they receive information (e.g., visual, auditory, kinesthetic).” (91.7%). Both values are consistent with other studies, including pre-service teachers (
Dündar and Gündüz 2016;
Grospietsch and Mayer 2019;
Papadatou-Pastou et al. 2017).
Interestingly, the lowest rate of correct answers (33.8%) was found for the following GKAB statement: “The left and right hemisphere of the brain always work together.” This statement is particularly important from an educational perspective. First, many “brain-based” educational programs claim to target the assumed “problems” of lateralization and interhemispheric integration. These approaches are usually based on outdated theories, such as Orton’s mixed cerebral dominance theory (
Orton 1937), Delacato’s neurological repatterning theory (
Delacato 1959), that have been widely criticized (
AAP 2010;
Committee on Children with Disabilities 1999;
Kroeze et al. 2016). A well-known example is Brain Gym, also known as educational kinesiology (
Dennison and Dennison 1994), which is a widely used program in many countries all around the globe—including Hungary—despite the lack of any sound theoretical or empirical evidence (
Hyatt 2007) for its validity. In a recent position statement article,
Kroeze et al. (
2016, p. 78) concluded that “given the limited time children are able to spend in the classroom environment, educators need to implement practices that have been validated by empirical research and not waste valuable time participating in the nuisance of Brain Gym or other pseudoscientific interventions that claim to provide a magical cure for all that ails humanity.”
Finally, we would like to highlight that a relatively low but still considerable proportion (19.8%) of participants were incorrect or uncertain about the effect of biological programming and genetics on mental capacity, that is, they considered such effects superior to environmental influence. This view contradicts the widely accepted scientific consensus that although mental abilities are influenced by a great number of genetic factors, the manifestation of those genetic determinants is heavily influenced by environmental factors and experience (
Davidson and McEwen 2012). The deterministic view of brain development and mental capacity is likely to be linked to some teachers’ fixed mindsets and their views on innate intelligence (
Dweck 2006;
Dweck and Leggett 1988), and might influence teachers’ practices in an undesirable way.
4.2. Factors Influencing Neuroliteracy
The results of ordinal logistic regression analysis are presented in
Table S1. In the present study, the examined predictors for the incorrect answers to NM and GKAB were the following: gender, age, previous degree, academic year, completed psychological courses, current specialization in university education, previous courses related to neuroeducation, interest in neuroscience of learning/behavior, frequency of using information sources about neuroscience.
The results of our ordinal logistic regression analysis showed that two predictors, male gender and the frequency of using Facebook to obtain information about neuroscience independently increased the prevalence of false beliefs in NM. The statistical model predicting the incorrect answers related to GKAB was not significant, which means that none of the examined predictors were associated with GKAB error score.
Previous studies had inconsistent results regarding the role of gender in the tendency to accept NM. In our study, the frequency of incorrect answers was slightly higher among men than among women, that is, men were more likely to believe in NM than women. This finding is similar to those of
Dündar and Gündüz (
2016), but different from the findings of
Ferrero et al. (
2016) who reported a higher rate of incorrect answers among women and to other studies that found no significant difference between men and women (e.g.,
Hermida et al. 2016;
Karakus et al. 2015).
Interestingly, indicators of previous education (previous degree, the number of completed academic year, psychology courses and courses related to neuroeducation) and interest in neuroscience of learning/behavior did not significantly affect answers among Hungarian pre-service teachers. This finding is consistent with that of
Gleichgerrcht et al. (
2015) who found that neuroscience education was not an effective protective factor against misconceptions. Other studies, however, found a protective effect of education courses against neuromyths (
Macdonald et al. 2017;
Ruhaak and Cook 2018).
Older age, having a degree, having completed psychological courses, spending more time in teacher training and using various sources of information on neuroscience did not demonstrate any protective effects against NM (i.e., none of these factors decreased the rate of incorrect answers).
The above findings suggest—somewhat concerningly—that during their university studies, neuroscience literacy of pre-service teachers does not develop in a desirable way: it is mostly their misconceptions that are reinforced during their studies. These findings are in contrast with those of a Turkish study, in which neuromyths scores declined during the first 3 years of training, but increased again in the fourth year, which the authors explained with the involvement of neuroscience in senior-grade teachers’ practical courses (
Dündar and Gündüz 2016).
Besides university courses, the participants reported to mostly obtain neuroscience-related information from non-scientific sources, such as YouTube, magazines and Facebook. More reliable sources, such as scientific papers and conferences are used by only a small subgroup of participants. We find these preferences problematic as the frequency of using Facebook as the main source of neuroscientific information was associated with a higher rate of incorrect answers. Thus, pre-service teachers prefer sources of neuroscience-related information that actually strengthen their misbeliefs.