Personalized Learning and Educational Genomics

Learners are different, the argument goes, so learning paths will be different, too. And, the argument continues, if learners will benefit from individualized learning pathways, so instruction should be based around an analysis of the optimal learning pathways for individuals and tailored to match them. In previous posts, I have questioned whether such an analysis is meaningful or reliable and whether the tailoring leads to any measurable learning gains. In this post, I want to focus primarily on the analysis of learner differences.

Family / social background and previous educational experiences are obvious ways in which learners differ when they embark on any course of study. The way they impact on educational success is well researched and well established. Despite this research, there are some who disagree. For example, Dominic Cummings (former adviser to Michael Gove when he was UK Education minister and former campaign director of the pro-Brexit Vote Leave group) has argued  that genetic differences, especially in intelligence, account for more than 50% of the differences in educational achievement.

Cummings got his ideas from Robert Plomin , one of the world’s most cited living psychologists. Plomin, in a recent paper in Nature, ‘The New Genetics of Intelligence’ , argues that ‘intelligence is highly heritable and predicts important educational, occupational and health outcomes better than any other trait’. In an earlier paper, ‘Genetics affects choice of academic subjects as well as achievement’, Plomin and his co-authors argued that ‘choosing to do A-levels and the choice of subjects show substantial genetic influence, as does performance after two years studying the chosen subjects’. Environment matters, says Plomin , but it’s possible that genes matter more.

All of which leads us to the field known as ‘educational genomics’. In an article of breathless enthusiasm entitled ‘How genetics could help future learners unlock hidden potential’ , University of Sussex psychologist, Darya Gaysina, describes educational genomics as the use of ‘detailed information about the human genome – DNA variants – to identify their contribution to particular traits that are related to education [… ] it is thought that one day, educational genomics could enable educational organisations to create tailor-made curriculum programmes based on a pupil’s DNA profile’. It could, she writes, ‘enable schools to accommodate a variety of different learning styles – both well-worn and modern – suited to the individual needs of the learner [and] help society to take a decisive step towards the creation of an education system that plays on the advantages of genetic background. Rather than the current system, that penalises those individuals who do not fit the educational mould’.

The goal is not just personalized learning. It is ‘Personalized Precision Education’ where researchers ‘look for patterns in huge numbers of genetic factors that might explain behaviors and achievements in individuals. It also focuses on the ways that individuals’ genotypes and environments interact, or how other “epigenetic” factors impact on whether and how genes become active’. This will require huge amounts of ‘data gathering from learners and complex analysis to identify patterns across psychological, neural and genetic datasets’. Why not, suggests Darya Gaysina, use the same massive databases that are being used to identify health risks and to develop approaches to preventative medicine?

If I had a spare 100 Euros, I (or you) could buy Darya Gaysina’s book, ‘Behavioural Genetics for Education’ (Palgrave Macmillan, 2016) and, no doubt, I’d understand the science better as a result. There is much about the science that seems problematic, to say the least (e.g. the definition and measurement of intelligence, the lack of reference to other research that suggests academic success is linked to non-genetic factors), but it isn’t the science that concerns me most. It’s the ethics. I don’t share Gaysina’s optimism that ‘every child in the future could be given the opportunity to achieve their maximum potential’. Her utopianism is my fear of Gattaca-like dystopias. IQ testing, in its early days, promised something similarly wonderful, but look what became of that. When you already have reporting of educational genomics using terms like ‘dictate’, you have to fear for the future of Gaysina’s brave new world.

Educational genomics could equally well lead to expectations of ‘certain levels of achievement from certain groups of children – perhaps from different socioeconomic or ethnic groups’ and you can be pretty sure it will lead to ‘companies with the means to assess students’ genetic identities [seeking] to create new marketplaces of products to sell to schools, educators and parents’. The very fact that people like Dominic Cummings (described by David Cameron as a ‘career psychopath’ ) have opted to jump on this particular bandwagon is, for me, more than enough cause for concern.

Underlying my doubts about educational genomics is a much broader concern. It’s the apparent belief of educational genomicists that science can provide technical solutions to educational problems. It’s called ‘solutionism’ and it doesn’t have a pretty history.