Cognitive Science, Education, Technology, etc.

Is it better to be organized than smart?

There's a stunning article in this month's Psychological Science. Duckworth and Seligman present a study that shows that self-discipline is more important to academic success than IQ.

This is a very interesting result, but it needs some follow-up.

Whenever you read about some personality variable (self-discipline, confidence, integrity, etc.) being studied, it's important to remember that the study must be relying on some way to measure that variable. We all have lots of connotations about what self-discipline means (careful readers will notice that I substituted "organized" for "self-disciplined" in my first sentence), but what this scientific result really means is that results on some group of tests which are claimed to measure self-discipline correlate with academic success (which is also measured in some way). In this case, the study used a combination of measures, including a questionnaire, reports from parents and teachers and a kind of goofy test where kids were asked whether they'd like a dollar right now or the promise of $2 in a week. Birds-in-hand and present value calculations notwithstanding, the correct answer is, apparently, to wait.

So, do the measures used correspond to what I'd consider self-discipline? I think so, but I'd be more convinced if they found that self-discipline could be distinguished from other characteristics that also, presumably, lead to academic success (like desire to succeed academically, belief in future success, belief in the value of studying, accurate self-assessment, etc.). To some extent, I suspect that the self-discipline measures are tapping aspects of all of these personality characteristics, so its hard to tell which one is really the crucial one to success.

There's a related issue with the outcome measures. What counts as academic success? Again, Duckworth and Seligman use multiple measures. Some seem fine (GPA, performance on an achievement test, admission to a selective high school), but others seem more like mediators than outcome measures. One of the outcome measures was the time of the day that students begin homework. Students with high self-discipline begin homework earlier. That's fine, but perhaps the time when you begin homework is also a predictor of success. In other words, you might start your homework earlier because you have high self-discipline, but you also might behave that way because you have an involved parent. And maybe it doesn't matter why you started your homework early, just that you did.

This stuff is important because, if its true that self-discipline is what really matters, then the next step is to figure out how to increase students' self-discipline. If having an involved parent leads to early homework which leads to academic success (just as strongly as student self-discipline), then let's focus on getting the kids homework started early, rather than trying to change self-discipline.

Finally, there's the issue of what IQ means. One argument against the importance of this study is that there's a difference between being smart and having a high IQ (notice how, in the first sentence, I substituted "smart" for IQ? Well, its just a blog). This is, fundamentally, the argument against any use of IQ - it doesn't capture all of what we mean when we say someone's smart. So, this is the same problem as with self-discipline -- does the measure match what we think it means? However, I'm less concerned with the IQ measure in this study. You may or may not agree that IQ=smart, but you probably have a good idea of what an IQ test is measuring. You've taken one - or a test something like one. And whatever it is that an IQ test measures, it seems pretty close to whatever it is that schools measure.

So finding something that beats IQ in predicting of academic success really is a stunning result.

The trip to Doha, Qatar was very successful - we even got press coverage.

Qatar's ambitions for Education City are bolder than I thought. In addition to the college campuses, Education City hosts (or will host) a charter school, a technology park (Microsoft, Rand and Price Waterhouse Coopers are all there), even the Al Jazeera children's channel.

They're building a large support network around the college campus idea. In order to prepare students for the Education City colleges, they have an Academic Bridge Program, which is basically a prep-school year. They've also set up a charter school system which teaches in English. This isn't strictly linked to Education City, but they're counting on some of those graduates to feed the schools.

Cornell and Virginia Commonwealth are currently the only two schools that have their own buildings. The CMU, A&M and Georgetown campuses are under construction. There's also a large area that appears to be reserved for more campuses, so stay tuned. Stuff's going on there.

I'm off tonight to visit Education City in Qatar.

In principal, Education City may be one of the best big ideas in the world. Qatar is a small country on the Persian Gulf. They've invited several prestigious universities (currently Carnegie Mellon, Cornell, Georgetown, Texas A&M and Virginia Commonwealth) to set up satellite campuses there. The idea is to provide a first-class postsecondary education in the Arab world. This can help build a future for Arab countries when the wells run dry, and it does it in a way that builds on the Arab world's historic role as a center of learning in the world. If this works, kids in the Arab world will be able to see their future in a way that builds on the past but allows them to participate in a progressive future.

So, why haven't you heard of it? Why isn't Tom Friedman writing about it? Google for it, and you see just about no coverage in the west, other than press releases by the universities (this MSNBC article is an exception).

I'm not sure. Maybe it's too new. Maybe this vision is controversial in the Arab world and viewed with skepticism in the Western world. Maybe it's too much to believe that this big vision could come out of a country as small as Qatar. Maybe this is too big a vision to be driven by a country as small as Qatar. Maybe its some kind of scam.

I don't know, but I'm going there to find out. At the very least, we'll help some kids learn some math.