Eclectic Technology

In the 1960s Stanford psychologist Walter Mischel and colleagues created an experiment, the "marshmellow test" to measure self-control in preschoolers. Would they eat one mini--marshmellow right away or would they wait 15 minutes to eat two mini-marshmellows?

Fast forward about 50 years and researchers have come up with a new "test that challenges the willpower of schoolkids to resist the brain-candy of today’s digital distractions — the YouTube videos, Instagram and mobile gaming apps like Angry Birds."

Why try to measure self-control. Researchers hope that it "will advance their studies of ways to improve academic perseverance in students."

Learn more about the original "marshmellow test" and this new test in the thought-provoking post. Additional areas that are discussed include:

* Road-testing the test

* Staying on task

* Different takes on willpower and grit

* A debate over drudgery

We live in age with many distractions. What happens to students when they are constantly being interrupted by one digital device or another? What impact might this have on their ability to cultivate "skills of attention...if students don’t learn how to concentrate and shut out distractions, research shows they’ll have a much harder time succeeding in almost every area."

What should we do to help students learn to focus? Should learning to focus become a part of the curriculum? Learn more about this topic by clicking through to the post.