Averages can conceal how people and science learn

Picture a learning curve. Most of us imagine a smooth upward slope that rises with steady mastery. It is the ultimate image of progress.

But that image, as behavioral sciences writer Bruce Bower reports in “Kids learning curve not so smooth” (SN: 11/26/16, p. 6), may well be an illusion of statistics, created when people look at averages of a group instead of how individuals actually learn.