Perceptions about brain functions and neuromyths in the student primary school teachers

By increasing new perceptions about brain functions which are enabled by new technologies, a new terminology is established, called neuromyth, which can be found while reading general literature and in popular media. Neuromyths do not achieve criteria of scientific approval, among them there are few, that can have major impact on teacher and his work in school, because they are related with area of education. There are several neuromyths, which often appear among teachers, for example: difference in dominance of both brain hemispheres (left and right hemisphere) can explain individual differences among students during study, there are critical phases in childhood after which certain things cannot be taught again, individuals learn better when they learn in theirs dominant learning style (hearing, visual, kinesthetic), etc. It is important for teachers to know the basic structure and operation of brains so they can be critical towards unproven scientific information and that they perform lessons based on proven scientific thesis, therefore improving their teaching practices. The empirical part of master`s thesis consist of conclusions based on survey (n = 79) of first grade students of primary school program and based on post-graduate students of primary school program (n = 52). Our purpose of the research was to find out how many futures primary school teachers are interested in scientific researches of brains, how much do they find these researches important and how much do they rely on neuromyths. We were also asking if students, who are more interested in scientific brain researches, at the same time also spot more neuromyths than others. We were also asking if students, who are reading public media about brain functions, often reply with neuromyths than others. A survey was made during research. Results of the survey were analyzed in SPSS software. In the research we used a part of the survey about brain functions and their meaning for educational work, designed for wide area research about neuromyths in educational work (Tancig, Smrtnik Vitulić, Prosen in Poljšak, 2014/15). Results showed that majority of future teachers is interested in brain operations and they believe that this knowledge is (very) important for teaching. Future teachers described brain operations with five neuromyths out of nine possible. The comparison between students also showed that post-graduate students more often agree with neuromyths than students in their first year of study. We also discovered that students who read articles about brains in public media did more often reply with a neuromyth in comparison to those students who do not read similar articles. Students who have less or no interest about scientific brain articles, they more often agree with a neuromyth in comparison to students who have bigger interest about mentioned findings. Results of research can provide a basis for more efficient planning of study scope and planning of additional trainings regarding neuroscience for teachers could improve the quality of education