E UNIQUSH ENGLI N EDITIO 2015

E UNIQU H ENGLIS N EDITIO

METACOGNITION: ‘KNOW THYSELF’ • PORTABLE TECHNOLOGY IN MENTAL HEALTH CARE • TOPICAL INTEREST: THE CLINICAL PSYCHOLOGIST WILL EVENTUALLY BE RECOGNIZED AS A CARE PROVIDER • COLUMN: CARSTEN DE DREU: PROFESSOR YOUTUBE • INSPIRATION: PAULIEN BAKKER • INTERVIEW WITH DON MELLENBERGH: THE PRESSURE TO PUBLISH IS BECOMING TOO INTENSE • COLUMN JOKE VAN SAANE: A GALLIC VILLAGE

EVERYONE DOES PSYCHOLOGY

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WELCOME TO AMSTERDAM Let us welcome you to Amsterdam, a place of many inspiring and surprising faces. No other city mixes cosmopolitan style and relaxed atmosphere quite like Amsterdam, where our hospitable nature attracts an excitingly diverse population. We invite you to join us and make our metropolis your own during your stay. Whether admiring the Golden Age gabled merchants’ houses of the old city centre or marvelling at the sleek skylines of the new Zuidas and harbour areas, you will see that Amsterdammers pride themselves on the city’s rich history while keeping focused on the future. Creative energy and innovation abound, strengthening and inspiring the established international business community.

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ome to some of the world’s most acclaimed works of art, with more canals than Venice, more bridges than Paris and nearly 7,000 monumental buildings, our compact floating city offers a variety of historical and cultural treasures. It’s no wonder Amsterdam’s historic canal ring has been named a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

Maybe you will visit our world-famous diamond factories, discover the city’s tradition as a jazz hub or simply soak up the local nightlife in a casual café – whatever you choose, we hope you enjoy our vibrant, open spirit. Welcome to Amsterdam.

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8 metacognition: ‘know thyself’ – Many of our daily thoughts and actions are automatic and more or less unconscious. The acquisition of new knowledge and skills, however, requires attention, concentration, and effort. What is the role of metacognition in this slow thinking? According to Marcel Veenman, metacognition allows us to reflect on and deliberately direct our own behaviour, so that we are not merely a plaything of fast thinking in our brain. 20 forum: scientifically sound scientific journalism – Psychological science is not news if it is new. When investigators first observe something empirically, it remains uncertain for a long time whether that observation will ever end up as scientific knowledge. Most people in our society, and in particular journalists, are insufficiently aware of this. The nonsense spread by some journalists leads to undeserved damage to the image of science and is irresponsible, Daniël Lakens contends. 34 portable technology in mental health care – Mobile technology such as smartphone applications is gradually making its entry into health care. At the moment, the purpose of these ‘apps’ is often prevention. For instance, they allow the general public to quickly and easily fill in self-report questionnaires, or access information or tailor-made help at the moment it is actually needed. This specific form of e-health (abbreviation for electronic health), i.e. the use of mobile computers, medical sensors and communication technology for health care, is referred to as m-health (mobile health).

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WHY AMSTERDAM? COMING TO AMSTERDAM

LOCAL INFRASTRUCTURE

Amsterdam Schiphol Airport is one of the world’s most modern and efficient airports, which is why is designated ‘Best Airport in Europe’ and third best in the world in the 2013 Business Traveller Awards. Scheduled services fly into Schiphol from at least 169 destinations within Europe and from 144 non- European destinations. Some 110 airlines fly from Amsterdam Airport Schiphol to more than 313 destinations worldwide. In 2013, Amsterdam Airport Schiphol served 52,5 million passengers. Schiphol train station is located directly below the airport and by train you arrive at Amsterdam Central Station within 15 minutes. Via Schiphol Plaza, you can walk straight to the departure or arrival hall. There are also 15 to 20 trains a day to destinations such as Brussels, Paris and Frankfurt.

The compact size of Amsterdam means that almost everything is within walking distance of each other. Nevertheless the public transport network of buses, trams and metro is efficient, modern, reliable and inexpensive. The GVB is the public transport company of Amsterdam. One million passengers within greater Amsterdam travel by tram, bus, metro and ferry every day. The city of Amsterdam has 821.702 inhabitants and 881,000 bicycles. It is rare to have a moment in the city when a bicycle does not zip by you. The Dutch use their bicycles as a means of transportation - to go shopping, commute to work and so on - rather than for recreational purposes. With beautiful scenery, flat landscapes and some 15,000 kilometres of specially designated bicycle paths and routes, cycling in the Netherlands is not only practical, but also very enjoyable.

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CONTENTS sections D E P S YC H O LO O G / S P E C I A L E D I T I O N 2 0 1 5 5

Editorial

6 from the nip-board and the bfp-board – Elly Plooij-van Gorsel and Karel De Witte. 19 column: Carsten de Dreu 26 everyone does psychology: barber Pasquale Capone 28 topical interest: The clinical psychologist will eventually be recognized as a care provider 32 prospective: Kees Stapel 40 inspiration: Paulien Bakker 43 column: Joke van Saane 44 interview with don mellenbergh: The pressure to publish is becoming too intense

colophon

De Psycholoog is the monthly journal of the Nederlands Instituut van Psychologen, the professional association of psychologists. De Psycholoog appears in the first week of every mouth (except in August) with a circulation of 12,600 copies. Editorial office: Vittorio Busato (chief editor), Jeroen van Goor (editor) and Geertje Kindermans (editor and author), email: [email protected]. ISSN: 0033-3115. Translation: Helen Dupuis-Landreth. Design: Curve, graphic design bNo, Henk Stoffels and Thomas Gaarthuis. Journal management, advertisements and subscriptions: Performis BV, contact person Geert Janus, telephone 073-6895889, email [email protected]. Publisher and member administration: NIP bureau, PO Box 2085, 3500 GB Utrecht. Telephone 030-8201500 (9.00-17.00 hours). IBAN code: NL81INGB00003788 02, SWIFT code: INGBNL2A. www.psynip.nl, e-mail: [email protected]. Cover photo: Jocelyne Moreau Would you like to respond to an article or start up a discussion based on an article in De Psycholoog, please surf to LinkedIn: http://alturl.com/wz95u of op Twitter (@RedactieDP).

collector’s item ‘The Dutch are frugal with their emotions.’ That is what the late Pasquale Capone once said to me when he cut my hair in his barber’s shop on the corner of Amsterdam’s Begijnhof. This sort of psychological insight from the street makes me, an academic psychologist, quite envious. He was an extraordinary man. He was born in Calabria, moved to Rome and it was love that led him to settle in the Netherlands. One must never call him a hairdresser, he was a barber who cared for the hair and the soul. A craftsman pur sang, because for him a society without craftsmen was a society without a soul. ‘The confidential relationship with the barber is the same as with a priest, vicar or doctor,’ he told me. And he just laughed impishly when I suggested that the psychologist also belongs on that list. The Dutch may be frugal with their emotions – Pasquale was wise enough not to mention the Belgians – but with this special issue of De Psycholoog the organizing committee of the EFPA Congress 2017 warmly offer you an introduction to psychology in the Netherlands and Belgium. We have put together a small collection of scientific papers, articles, columns and features that have appeared in De Psycholoog in recent years, together with two articles from the Belgian Tijdschrift Klinische Psychologie and the e-zine e-Psychologos. You can read how Capone practised psychology, how psychologist and journalist Paulien Bakker is inspired by Iraq and psychology student Kees Stapel’s personal account of his experiences related to his emotively charged surname. You will also find more technical pieces on topics such as metacognition, pressure to publish, use of portable technology in mental health care, and the trend towards sensationalism in scientific journalism – themes which are sure to be of interest in your country and are considered here from a Dutch-Belgian perspective. I wish you an inspiring congress and much pleasure reading this collector’s item. A rivederci in due anni in Amsterdam! Vittorio Busato, chief editor of De Psycholoog (vittorio. [email protected])

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dear colleagues,

In May 2013 we proposed to the General Assembly of the European Federation of Psychologists’ Association (EFPA) that the 15th European Congress of Psychology (ECP) be assigned to Amsterdam, the Netherlands. We are pleased that this proposal was accepted later in the year after the 13th ECP in Stockholm. Now the time has come for us to assume our role as host for the 15th ECP in July 2017. Joınt effort We are delighted to be organizing the congress in Amsterdam, the fascinating and inspiring capital of the United Kingdom of the Netherlands. This 15th ECP will be a joint effort by the Dutch Association of Psychologists (NIP) and the Belgian Federation of Psychologists (BFP). We aim to offer an interesting and challenging program for both researchers and practitioners. The scientific program will aim to enhance knowledge and enable interaction with colleagues from all over

Europe. We will offer plenty of opportunities for scientific and social discourse in the modern surroundings of the Amsterdam RAI Convention Centre. We strive to offer a scientific program that will be of interest to everyone. The congress will feature high-quality professional contributions and will provide the opportunity for debate in the various broad areas of psychology.

Specıal edıtıon De Psycholoog In order that our European colleagues may get to know us, we proudly present to you this unique and special edition of the professional journal De Psycholoog (‘The Psychologist’). Normally this journal is published in Dutch and offers the members of NIP a monthly overview of scientific news and articles, interviews, essays, features and inspiration. To introduce the scientific community and practitioners in Belgium and the Netherlands, we have

Dr. Elly Plooij – van Gorsel President Nederlands Instituut van Psychologen

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E lly P looi j – van G o r sel & K a r el D e W itte

produced this special edition to offer you a tempting preview. It aims to show the broad field of Psychology being studied and practised in our small countries. In contributions from Belgian and Dutch scientists you will gain some insight into the research being conducted in our regions and we aim to make you curious to learn more. A barber on the cover? Yes! Psychology is a major scientific field of study, but it is also something from everyday life. We all experience the power of communication and the expression of our thoughts, whether or not this is in the form of psychological advice. We all ‘do psychology’. Dr. Vittorio Busato, the chief editor of De Psycholoog as well as of this special edition, chose to symbolize this by republishing the wise words of the late and famous Amsterdam barber, Pasquale Capone. Originally from Calabria, Italy, Pasquale was a ‘psychologist from the street’ and above all in his heart a craftsman. Don’t we all, as psychologists, strive for this craftsmanship?

Save the date We thank our Italian colleagues for their warm reception in Milan and for organizing this year’s European Congress of Psychology. We are realizing more and more what an immense effort it requires to organize an event like this. We wish to express our thanks for their help and support so far in organizing the 15th edition, and we hope to receive more of their invaluable advice and learn from their experience.

You will gain some insight into the research being conducted in our regions

Amsterdam will be hosting the European Congress of Psychology for the second time. The first event was held in 1989 and since then a lot has changed! We therefore encourage you, not only to visit the EFPA congress and the EFPA General Assembly, but also to enjoy the charming and lively city with its cultural, culinary and many other attractions and your summer in Amsterdam. Enjoy our special edition. We hope to welcome you in the beautiful city of Amsterdam in July 2017!

Scientific knowledge needs to be dispersed widely. To facilitate this we offer you not only this special edition in hardcopy. Once you will be back home, we will sent to all member associations of EFPA a newsletter with the link to our congress website were you and the members you represent can read and enjoy this selection of articles highlighting some of the Psychological scientific research and knowledge we have to offer in Belgium and The Netherlands. We hope you will share and discuss this information.

Dr. Karel De Witte President Belgische Federatie van Psychologen

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Many of our daily thoughts and actions are automatic and more or less unconscious. The acquisition of new knowledge and skills, however, requires attention, concentration, and effort. What is the role of metacognition in this slow thinking? According to Marcel Veenman, metacognition allows us to reflect on and deliberately direct our own behaviour, so that we are not merely a plaything of fast thinking in our brain.

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USE THAT KNOWLEDGE ESPECIALLY TO REGULATE YOUR OWN BEHAVIOUR

Metacognition: ‘know thyself’

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n recent years, much emphasis in psychology has been placed on the role of the brain in human behaviour. Some neuro-scientists (Lamme, 2010; Swaab, 2010) argue that behaviour is merely driven by unconscious decisions of the autonomous brain. Consciousness is reduced to an epiphenomenon, that is, not as the cause of behaviour but as the consequence of unconscious decisions already made by the brain. This extreme standpoint, however, is equally one-sided and fruitless as the assumption of the ultimate free will. Naturally, the influence of unconscious processes on behaviour should not be underestimated. Human actions are always influenced and sometimes dictated by emotions and deeply anchored behaviour patterns in memory. When performing complex procedures, basic actions must be automated to let the process continue smoothly, without a delay due to conscious processing. An example of this is the decoding of letters while reading a text. Kahneman (2011) refers to this automatized, unconscious, associative, and emotional cognition as the primary system of ‘fast thinking’. Many of our daily thoughts and actions are controlled by this system. And sometimes this is a good thing; when a tiger jumps up at you, you better not have to stop and think before acting. Next to fast thinking, Kahneman postulates a secondary system of ‘slow thinking,’ which works in a conscious, deliberated, and logical way. Slow thinking requires attention, concentration, and effort. With the system of slow thinking, control can be exercised on the fast thinking. In this way, preconceptions or reflexes can be adjusted when called for by the situation. Slow thinking is also necessary for

acquiring new knowledge and skills. When you start to learn to drive a car, basic actions must first be carried out consciously, carefully, and in the right order, before the procedure is automated through practice. The aim of this article is to clarify the crucial role metacognition plays in the system of slow thinking. Metacognition allows us to reflect on and deliberately direct our behaviour, so that we are not merely a plaything of fast thinking in our brain.

Metacognitive knowledge and skills Metacognition is a concept that was introduced in the 1970s (Flavell, 1979). Metacognition is defined as cognition about cognition, or thinking about one’s own mental activities. Two components of metacognition are distinguished: On the one hand, it concerns the actual knowledge about one’s own cognitive system and, on the other hand, the regulation and control of the one’s own cognitive system. The latter component is also referred to as self-regulation. Principles of metacognition are applied in various disciplines, such as sport psychology, clinical psychology, developmental psychology, and educational psychology. This article especially focuses on educational situations. The findings, however, can be applied to other professional fields.

knowledge The first component, metacognitive knowledge, refers to descriptive knowledge of the interplay between person, task, and strategy variables (Flavell, 1979). A pupil can, for instance, recognize that he (person variable) finds mathematics a difficult subject (task variable), and that he will therefore have to practice a lot by doing mathematics

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exercises (strategy variable). On the other hand, another pupil may think that mathematics is an easy subject and consequently skip the homework. This second pupil may likely fail the test. The example of the second pupil shows that metacognitive knowledge does not by definition have to be correct, although the knowledge does influence the learning behaviour of the pupil. A pupil can have all sorts of beliefs, about himself, the learning task, and the effort needed for all learning activities, that do not correspond with reality. Even when a pupil does have correct metacognitive knowledge, this is not a guarantee that the pupil will also actually regulate his learning behaviour adequately (Veenman, Van Hout-Wolters, & Afflerbach, 2006). The pupil from the first example may intend to practice a lot, but for all sorts of reasons may not actually do so. The pupil may be insufficiently motivated to invest the necessary time when push comes to shove. Or he may be distracted by other appealing pursuits. The pupil may find it difficult to judge whether the exercise is relevant: Doing exercises that have already been mastered is easy but less relevant, while doing exercises that are not yet mastered is difficult but relevant. Also, the pupil may lack the skills needed to practice, in particular practice with different assignments, so that each attempt at practice is nipped in the bud. Thus, correct metacognitive knowledge is an essential, but not sufficient condition for adequate regulation of learning behaviour (Veenman, 2011).

Skills The second component of metacognition, metacognitive skills, pertains to the actual regulation of and control over learning behaviour. Task orientation, setting goals, planning, monitoring or process control, evaluation, and self-reflection are examples of metacognitive skills. These skills regulate learning behaviour and, thus, directly determine learning outcomes. In a review of literature, Wang, Haertel, and Walberg (1990) concluded that metacognition is one of the most important factors in the learning process, more important than intelligence, socioeconomic status, and study motivation. A meta-analysis by Veenman (2008) of studies with pupils and students aged between 9 and 26 years who carried out various types of learning tasks (text comprehension, problem solving, enquiry-based learning) in different domains (mathematics, physics, history geography, biology, psychology etc.), revealed that intelligence and metacognitive skills together determine 50% of learning outcomes. Of

that, 10% was unique variance of intelligence, 18% unique variance of metacognitive skills, while the remaining 22% involved shared variance of both factors. Although intelligence and metacognition were correlated (r = .45), metacognition proved to provide a substantial independent contribution to learning outcomes. In order to be effective, metacognitive skills have to be employed in an orderly fashion during the execution of a task. A pupil with good metacognition will first prepare for the task by orienting on the task. First, the task assignment will be analyzed to discover the nature of the task. The pupil may ask himself what sort of task it is, what sort of text it is (a news report, an argument, a summary), or what sort of problem needs to be solved (a routine problem, finding a solution in a certain domain, or a problem with multiple solutions from which the best alternative must be chosen). When doing this, prior knowledge can be retrieved from memory, on the one hand enabling a better understanding of the task and, on the other hand, preparing memory for storage of new knowledge. On the basis of the task analysis, an appropriate goal for the assignment needs to be set before task execution. On reading an article on Indonesian rice fields for Economics, the goal could be to find out which factors lead to a poverty trap. And when solving thermodynamics problems, the goal could be to understand how volume, pressure, and temperature behave as a system. The pupil can then devise a plan of action for attaining that goal, preferably before taking action. Experience, however, shows that pupils usually first devise a rough plan, which is further specified while performing the task. When lacking knowledge of the subject matter, starting with a rough plan is not such a bad idea. Gradually, knowledge is gathered that can be used to adapt the plan to the task requirements. During the execution phase, a pupil with good metacognition usually adheres to the preconceived plan, unless there are legitimate reasons for a revision of the plan. In this phase, a metacognitively proficient pupil keeps a close watch on his behaviour to avoid mistakes or timely correct them, to check the understanding of the material, and to assess progress made towards the goal. This observation and assessment of one’s own functioning from a helicopter view is called monitoring or process control. Making detailed, functional notes while performing a task supports the process of monitoring, because the pupil can then look back at earlier steps in the execution of the task. The meaning of earlier keywords and the relationships between keywords can be quickly retrieved or earlier

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calculations can be retraced and checked from step-by-step notes. After this execution phase, a pupil with good metacognition will evaluate whether his goal has been reached adequately. In terms of the previous examples: Can I now explain why people on Java are becoming poorer and poorer, or do I now understand the connections between volume, pressure and temperature? Moreover, by re-reading the assignment, the pupil may determine whether task requirements have been met. Reflection on how the task was executed may entail learning for future performance. For metacognitively proficient pupils, this whole process is cyclic in nature (Veenman, 2013a; Zimmerman, 2008). If the pupil gets stuck during task performance, monitoring processes ensure that he re-orientates on the assignment or adapts the plan of action. Task evaluation after task execution can also lead to reorientation or revision of plans until the goal has been reached (see figure 1). Pupils with poor metacognition, on the other hand, almost completely skip the preparatory phase. The assign-

ment is often only read superficially or in part, after which they immediately start acting. With text comprehension, this usually leads to linear, mechanical reading from start to finish (Van der Stel & Veenman, 2010; Veenman & Beishuizen, 2004). With problem solving, trial-and-error behaviour is often seen, whereby different solution methods are selected and tried out at random. In the end, the pupil cannot see the wood for the trees (Elshout, 1988). Monitoring is done sparsely and only when an evident mistake compels the pupil to do so. Characteristic for pupils with poor metacognitive skills is that the execution of the task ends abruptly when the last word in the text has been read, or when a solution has been found, even if this solution does not give an answer to the question. The evaluation phase is thus practically skipped (Veenman, 2013a).

Relation of metacognitive skills with cognitive processes In his model, Nelson (1996) shows how metacognitive skills guide the learning process (see figure 2). Nelson postulates

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that our thinking is composed of two layers: The object level and the meta level. At the object level, all sorts of cognitive execution processes take place. For reading, for instance, letters have to be identified and grouped together in a word, the meaning of which can be retrieved from memory. The different words in a sentence are arranged according to the rules of grammar, so that the sentence gains meaning. Separate sentences are linked in order to understand the text. So, cognitive execution processes for reading not only pertain to technical reading but also to text comprehension. In the same vein, execution processes can be distinguished for mathematics. Figures have to be identified and given a value, depending on their position in the number (the ‘1’ is worth less in 21 than in 12). Operators have to be chosen and applied (3 + 4 = 7). For more complex calculations, different operators should be applied in a certain order (e.g., long division). Without these cognitive execution processes, the task cannot be performed.

Metaphor To use a metaphor, the student can be seen as a factory where cars are being assembled. The object level can be compared with the conveyer belt on the shop floor. A screw here, a welded joint there, and all in the right order. The meta level represents the metacognitive control over the object level. In the factory metaphor, the meta level can be seen as the floor manager who ensures that the assembly Figure 1. Metacognitive feedback loops during task execution. Preparation: Task orientation Goal setting Generating plans

Execution: Following plan Monitoring

Self-evaluation: Task evaluation Reflection

self-correction

process runs uninterruptedly and smoothly. There are two flows of information between the object level and the meta level. The first information flow is monitoring, where information about what is happening at the object level is passed on to the meta level. In the metaphor of the factory, the manager oversees the shop floor so as to check if anything goes wrong (they have run out of screws, something falls off the belt, a spray-painting robot runs amuck). At the meta level, a decision is taken about how such an error can be corrected and from the meta level instructions are transmitted to the object level through the second ‘control’ information flow (NB, ‘control’ here does not mean checking, but rather guiding and managing). In the factory, the manager gives an order to fetch a packet of screws from the stockroom, to adjust the speed of the conveyer belt, or to halt the spray-painting robot and recalibrate it. Ideally, a continuous interaction takes place between the meta level (the manager) and the object level (shop floor). The meta level and the object level are inextricably connected. A manager cannot continue production without a shop floor, while a shop floor without a manager ends in chaos.

Monitoring The same applies to performing a learning task, whether it be reading, writing, or mathematics. The cognitive execution processes should be continually monitored in order to promptly detect errors. With reading, for example, monitoring serves to identify that a word has not been read correctly or detect a lack of comprehension. In mathematics, it may involve determining whether the right operator has been chosen, checking that no mistakes are made in the calculations, and verifying whether you are still on the right track. When an error or failure in the execution of the task has been detected by the meta level, then the meta level should give instructions to the object level through the control information flow. With reading, control instructions could be to read the word again or to look up an unfamiliar word in the dictionary. With mathematics, control instructions could be to approach the problem from a different angle or to devise a new step-by-step plan for solving the problem. These instructions from the control information flow must subsequently be applied to the cognitive processes at the object level. The rereading must actually take place to be effective and the problem must be solvable in a different way. A pupil with very poor metacognitive proficiency not only lacks the meta level in thinking, but also both the information flows. A typical pupil without metacognitive skills will

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read a text from A to Z in a monotone and linear fashion, without stopping at errors in reading or any lack of comprehension. A pupil with poor metacognitive skills in mathematics tries different operators by ‘trial-and-error’, without first reading the assignment carefully. Implausible answers may also be given bluntly (for example ‘34 hours’ to the question of how many hours Johnny has played that afternoon). There are also pupils with poor metacognitive proficiency who do have monitoring skills at their disposition, but where the meta level is not capable of generating effective control instructions. In this case the reader will ascertain that he does not know a word, but continues reading without bothering about what that word might mean. With mathematics, a pupil might sense that something is amiss with a certain outcome but he does not have an alternative method at hand to calculate the problem again. Pupils who not only have good monitoring skills but who can also effectively regulate their behaviour may show a variety of meta instructions for the object level. After reading an unfamiliar word, they go back through the text to look for its meaning, refer to a dictionary, try to deduce the meaning from the context, or initially read on and then return to the unknown word. With mathematics, a pupil with good metacognition will check all the calculation steps, or calculate backwards from the outcome to the original givens in search of the mistake. In metacognitively skilful pupils, the successive processes of execution, monitoring, metadecisions and control instruction are thus continually present and cyclic in nature. A revision of the task execution leads once again to monitoring of how adequate that revision was, as a consequence of the continuous interaction between the shop floor and the manager.

Self-instructions On top of Nelson’s model, Veenman (2011) postulated that metacognitively proficient pupils have a program of self-instructions at their disposal that conveys general control instructions from the meta level to the object level (see figure 2). This general program of self-instructions is activated as soon as pupils are confronted with a new task. A series of general self-instructions can look like this: First read the assignment carefully, think about what you already know of the subject matter, distinguish relevant from irrelevant information, find out what the goal of the task is, devise a plan to reach that goal, plan a step-by-step approach, consciously monitor the learning process, evaluate the result (preferably referring to the assignment), and recapitulate what you have done and learned. At the object level, these

Theory of Mind marks the onset of metacognitive development

general self-instructions must be tailored to the context of the specific task: The goal of a reading task may differ from that for writing, so the plan of action also needs to be different. Consequently, the pupil must be able to translate the general instructions from the meta level into task- or domain-specific activities at the object level. This can be quite difficult when the pupil does not possess prior knowledge of the task involved. Nevertheless, these general metacognitive skills are a determining factor in eliciting the learning process of a novice pupil who has to carry out a new, unknown task (Prins, Veenman & Elshout, 2006; Veenman & Elshout, 1999). This general program of self-instructions is gradually acquired and built up while the pupil is performing different learning tasks at school. Besides the influence of the environment (parents and teachers with their exemplary behaviour), the acquisition of metacognitive skills is also partly determined by the cognitive development of the child.

development of metacognitive skills Between the age of three and five years, a child learns to develop a ‘Theory of Mind’ (tom). The child realizes that the knowledge and thinking of others do not necessarily correspond with their own. A typical tom task is a sweet tin with a picture of Smarties on the lid. The tin is put on the table in front of the child and the child is asked what he thinks is inside it. All children answer: Smarties. Then they are allowed to open the tin and they see it contains pencils, and not Smarties. If they are then asked what a friend, who has not yet looked in the tin, will think is inside, the three-year-olds say ‘pencils’ while the five-year olds give ‘Smarties’ as their answer. So, three-year-olds do not realize that their friend cannot know that there are pencils in the tin, while five-year-olds can put themselves in the position of their friend. tom marks the start of metacognitive development (Lockl & Schneider, 2006). In the following years, children develop

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Figure 2. Model of metacognitive self-instructions, based on Nelson (1996)

Meta level: Program of self-instructions

Control: self-instructions

Monitoring

Object level: Implementation of self-instructions

knowledge of their own cognitive system, such as how memory works, but they are still limited in their ability to regulate and control their own behaviour. For example, when five-year-olds in play are asked to distribute teddy bears over a limited number of chairs (Whitebread et al., 2009), it seems that young children are able to apply elementary forms of planning and self-correction. They may start by putting one teddy on each chair to see how many teddies are left over, or they take back a teddy if there are too many on one chair. The development of metacognitive skills in the school context, however, does not start until the age of eight or nine. After that, during late childhood, puberty, and adolescence, the use of metacognitive skills increases markedly. Veenman, Wilhelm and Beishuizen (2004) gave pupils and students aged 9, 11, 14, and 22 years, respectively, the same four biology and geography tasks. Figure 3 shows the use of metacognitive skills on these tasks set against age. Moreover, the development of intelligence is depicted (note that these are rough intelligence scores, and not IQs standardized for age). The figure clearly shows a steep growth in metacognitive skilfulness up until late adolescence and early adulthood. More evidence for such a developmental increase in metacognitive skills has been found for solving mathematical problems (Van der Stel et al., 2010; Veenman & Spaans, 2005) and for studying history texts (Van der Stel & Veenman, 2010). The development of metacognitive skills runs parallel with the development of the prefrontal lobe of the brain (Veenman, 2011). This front part of the brain is responsible for executive processes such as inhibition (a ‘stop’ function that restrains rash or uncontrolled behaviour, such as

suddenly running across the road when you do not know whether a car is coming) and planning (arranging action sequences in behaviour). So, there seems to be a neurological basis for the development of metacognitive skills. More research, however, is needed to determine the causal relation between executive processes and metacognitive skills. Furthermore, metacognitive skills do not unfold at the same age (Van der Stel & Veenman, 2010). Planning and monitoring emerge early in development, while evaluation and reflection blossom later. Possibly, the prefrontal lobe first needs to be sufficiently matured to carry out complex metacognitive skills such as evaluation and reflection, whereby the learner must be able to analyze his or her own cognitive functioning from a helicopter view.

Qualitative change in metacognitive development Apart from an increase in the use of metacognitive skills with age, also a qualitative change in the nature of metacognitive skills occurs. Between eight and twelve years, metacognitive skills still have a distinctive domain-specific component (Van der Stel & Veenman, 2010; Veenman & Spaans, 2005). Pupils apply the same metacognitive skills to tasks that are highly similar (for example, all sorts of reading tasks), but to a lesser degree for tasks that differ (such as problem solving). Thus, it appears that metacognitive skills initially develop on ‘separate islands of tasks that are very much alike’ (Veenman & Spaans, 2005). After the age of twelve, metacognitive skills become increasingly task- and domain-surpassing. A crucial age is the fourteenth year, when the increase in metacognitive skills is briefly suspended, while metacognitive skills are transformed into a general domain-surpassing repertoire (Van der Stel & Veenman, 2014). This age marks the moment that a pupil has built up a general program of self-instructions at the meta level. After the age of fourteen, growth resumes and the repertoire of general metacognitive skills is extended further. The importance of this general repertoire of metacognitive skills cannot be overemphasized. It facilitates the execution of new tasks in the absence of domain-specific knowledge, such as at the start of a new study or new job.

Individual differences This description of the metacognitive development, however, does not imply that metacognitive skills develop to the same extent in all pupils. Within each age group, there appear to be

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F  IGURE 3. Development of metacognitive skills and intelligence (Veenman et al., 2004).

+2.5

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Intel z-scores

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adequate behaviour. Through a systematic step-by-step approach and careful monitoring, they are able to perform well on all sorts of tasks. These pupils are often described as diligent and disciplined, but they make progression mainly by the effective regulation of their own learning behaviour.

Assessment of metacognitive deficiencies -2.5 9.5

11.6

14.1

22.5 yrs.

large individual differences in metacognitive skilfulness between pupils. Some pupils lack adequate skills, whereas the metacognitive skills of other pupils are above average relative to their peers. Even adult students at university can show poor metacognitive behaviour, for instance when studying texts (Veenman & Beishuizen, 2004). Some students skip the titles and abstracts of articles and book chapters, read in a linear fashion without checking their comprehension, mark whole pages with a yellow marker pen without distinguishing between main points and side issues, and do not recapitulate what they have read. The same metacognitive ineptitude can be seen in students who have difficulty with organizing study projects or writing a thesis. Recent research has shown that clever, highly gifted pupils are equally susceptible to metacognitive deficiencies as their less gifted classmates (Veenman et al., 2014). Of the pupils with an IQ ≥ 130 in 11th grade of pre-university education (5-VWO), 45% attained a score on metacognition below the average of their less gifted classmates. Possibly, these highly gifted pupils rely purely on their intelligence when performing tasks in secondary education, as a result of which they fail to see the necessity of developing their metacognitive skills. Problems do not occur until the complexity of the learning material inevitably calls upon metacognitive skills, such as in senior high school or at university. Then pupils with poor metacognitive skills are at risk of repeating a year, suffering from study delay, or even dropping out. Less gifted pupils, on the other hand, can compensate for their (relatively) lower intelligence with metacognitively

When a pupil is lagging behind in a certain field, this may be caused by a lack of metacognitive skills. In order to identify such metacognitive deficiencies, the pupil should be observed for the spontaneous use of metacognitive skills.

Questionnaires Often questionnaires are administered that inquire after the pupil’s study activities, such as the Inventory Learning Styles (Vermunt, 1992) and the Motivated Strategies for Learning Questionnaire (Pintrich & De Groot, 1990). An item would, for instance, ask pupils whether they ‘select important passages in the text’ (never, sometimes, regularly, often, or always). An advantage is that questionnaires are easy to administer in large groups of pupils. A serious problem, however, is that what pupils answer on these questionnaires hardly corresponds to their actual behaviour during task performance (Cromley & Azevedo, 2006; Veenman, 2005, 2011; Winne & Jamieson-Noel, 2002). Even when a questionnaire is presented directly after the learning task, pupils still do not report accurately what they have actually done. Distortions arise in the reconstruction of one’s behaviour from memory, answers are biased by social desirability, and comparisons are made with varying reference persons (the best or rather the worst fellow-pupil). People in general, but children in particular, are not objective judges of their own behaviour. Moreover, answers on questionnaires appear to correlate very poorly with learning performances (Veenman, 2005). Consequently, questionnaires are not suitable for measuring the spontaneous use of metacognitive skills. Thinking aloud A better method is to have pupils perform a learning task, while thinking aloud and being observed during the task execution (Pressley & Afflerbach, 1995; Veenman, Elshout & Groen, 1993). Then, you hear what the pupil is thinking, while you watch what he or she is doing. These sessions are preferably recorded on (video) tape, so that they can be analyzed later for characteristic metacognitive behaviour, based on a detailed coding system (e.g., Van der Stel & Veenman, 2014). The advantage of thinking aloud is that

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not only cognitive activities at the object level are observed, but also verbalizations of the information flow between the object and meta level. A pupil says for instance: ‘I don’t think this outcome is right…’ (= monitoring), ‘…so I am going to do the calculation again’ (= control). Thus, the recalculation is the clear result of a metacognitive self-instruction, which is initiated by the monitoring of a potential mistake. Although the thinking-aloud method is not suitable for purely routine tasks or extremely complex tasks, the method does in general prove to be reliable and valid for assessing (meta-) cognitive processes (Ericsson & Simon, 1993; Veenman, 2005; Veenman et al., 1993). A disadvantage, however, is that the thinking-aloud method has to be applied individually. Moreover, analyzing thinking-aloud or video protocols is very labour intensive.

Computer A recent development is that metacognitive skills can now be measured by presenting learning tasks on the computer, with all the actions of the pupil being stored in a log file. An example is g-Study by Winne (2010), a computer program for reading text where pupils are followed as they navigate through a text, the notes made are stored, and time on task for reading text passages is measured. Another example is the Otter task (Veenman et al., 2014) where pupils have to carry out experiments to discover the effects of five independent variables (size of natural habitat, environmental state, access to the public, setting out of otter pairs, and feeding extra fish) on the size of the otter population. In the log file, data are stored on the number of (unique) experiments, the thinking time between experiments, and the systematic approach in the choice of experiments. Because the flows of information between object and meta level are not registered in the log-file data, indicators for metacognitive behaviour in the log files must be validated beforehand in participants who think aloud (Veenman, 2013b). After validation, the learning task can be administered to groups of pupils, working individually in a computer room. Log-file data from this type of learning task can indeed provide information about the general metacognitive level of individual pupils aged fourteen or older.

Instruction of metacognitive skills Establishing metacognitive deficiencies in individual pupils only makes sense if these skills can also be acquired through instruction and training. A meta-analysis of metacognitive interventions shows sufficient evidence of instruction and training effects (Dignath & Büttner, 2008). In order to be

When a tiger jumps up at you, you better not have to stop and think before acting effective, however, metacognitive instruction should meet a number of conditions. The instruction should clearly convey to pupils what metacognitive skills to use (What), at which moment (When), for what reason (Why), and in what way (How). This is known as the WWW&H rule of metacognitive instruction (Veenman, 2013a). Instruction based on the WWW&H rule starts with the introduction of the necessary metacognitive knowledge, which subsequently must be used for acquiring metacognitive skills through practice. There are three fundamental principles for effective instruction and training of metacognitive skills (Veenman et al., 2006). The first principle is embedding metacognitive instruction in the learning material. In order to effectively learn metacognitive skills, instruction and training should take place within the context of a concrete task. Research has shown that abstract learning of metacognitive skills, such as in separate lessons of study skills, does not result in the pupil actually applying the skills in the intended task contexts (Veenman, 2013a). Instruction of metacognitive skills within the context of a subject makes it clear to the pupil What to do When and How by relating metacognitive activities to the cognitive activities at the object level. Pupils learn to evaluate their outcomes, not only because the teacher tells them to do so, but especially by practising how evaluation in a specific task context should be carried out. Step-by-step plans in which the sequence of metacognitive activities is schematically depicted can support pupils when learning how to apply the proper metacognitive skills at the right moment (Veenman, 2013a). IMPROVE (Kramarski & Mevarech, 2003) is such a step-by-step plan that has proved to be effective for the application of metacognitive skills in mathematical problem solving. The second principle is informed instruction. For pupils who are already having difficulties with performing a task, learning new metacognitive skills puts in fact an extra burden on top of the task. They will only be willing to maintain using these skills if they understand what the benefits of these skills are. Only through explicit instruction of the Why, will pupils continue to apply the acquired metacognitive skills autonomously, also when the teacher is not looking over their shoulders. However, research shows that

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even if secondary school teachers devote time to metacognition in their lessons, they seldom give informed instruction (see Veenman, 2013a). The last principle is prolonged training. As with any skill, the acquisition of metacognitive skills takes time. Pupils have to learn, practise and integrate the skills in their behavioural repertoire to ensure smooth and maintained application of metacognitive activity. The duration of training is not fixed, because duration depends on the number and complexity of the metacognitive skills to be acquired. Repeated practice, preferably spread over time, is necessary to obtain mastery of metacognitive skills. Ideally, metacognitive instruction should extend over more than one specific task situation, so that the foundations are laid for transfer of metacognitive skills (Veenman et al., 2004). The ultimate goal is, after all, to obtain a general metacognitive repertoire that can be applied to any task situation. A good example is the study by Pressley and Gaskins (2006), in which pupils with extremely poor reading skills received metacognitive instructions with every reading task, in every field, by all teachers, and at all hours throughout the school day. After several years of training, this domain-surpassing approach increased the general reading skills of pupils to an above-average level.

Conclusion Metacognition helps us work in a well-considered, systematic, and controlled fashion when executing all sorts of tasks in school situations and thereafter in our working lives. In this way, primary, impulsive responses of fast thinking in our brain can be curbed if the situation requires conscious, adaptive behaviour. In a way, Swaab (2010, p. 387) does acknowledge that conscious action occurs when the situation demands attention, but he then dismisses it as ‘dangerous’. Presumably, he means that it is susceptible to errors in the task execution. The metacognitive functions of monitoring and reflection enable us to learn from our mistakes and, thus, function better in the future. Good task orientation, setting clear goals, and generating a detailed plan, in turn, facilitate the monitoring and evaluation of our own behaviour (Veenman, 2011). Slow metacognitive thinking does take more time and effort than fast thinking, but the benefits are accordingly. Moreover, a repertoire of metacognitive self-instructions can be effectively instructed by initially calling upon conscious thinking about the What, When, Why, and How rule (Veenman, 2013a). Metacognition helps

us not to surrender to the whims of fast thinking in our brain. In this article, metacognition is described in an educational context. However, mental preparations for sporting achievements, coping with anxiety, dealing with compulsive behaviour, or making efforts to stop smoking can also be seen as learning tasks. The principles described here are equally relevant and applicable. A search in PsycINFO with metacognition or self-regulation as keywords clearly reveals that a well-developed metacognitive repertoire is beneficial in a wide range of task contexts. Metacognitive instruction can lead to a considerable improvement in cognitive functioning. However, metacognition is not a panacea, nor is it a trick that you can learn in a spare hour or two. It is a useful tool that you can learn to employ through deliberate practice.

About the author Dr. Marcel Veenman worked at Leiden University for more than twenty years. From 2006 to 2011 he was the founding editor of Metacognition and Learning, an international journal published by Springer. Since 1 August 2014, he is the director of the Institute for Metacognition Research (IMO), Mesdaglaan 50, 2182 XS Hillegom. The aim of this institute is to bring knowledge on metacognition into schools through lectures and workshops. E-mail: [email protected]. This article is adapted from a keynote delivered at the EARLI conference in Munich, September 2013.

Abstract METACOGNITION: ‘KNOW THYSELF ’ M.V.J. VEENMAN In this paper, it is argued that metacognition prevents human behaviour from merely being controlled by unconscious fast decisions of the brain. Metacognition pertains to the conscious knowledge about and intentional regulation of one’s cognitive system. Metacognitive skills for monitoring and controlling one’s learning processes are highly predictive of school performance, but also allow for sustained learning and performance into adulthood. Although elementary forms of planning and monitoring may already be observed in very young children, steady growth of metacognitive skills occurs from late elementary school unto late adolescence. Additionally, a transition in metacognitive skills from being rather domain-specific to a general repertoire occurs at the age of fourteen. Learners of all ages, however, substantially vary from being poor to highly proficient in the execution of metacognitive skills. Even intellectually gifted pupils may suffer from poor metacognition. Conditions for effective instruction and training of metacognitive skills are also discussed.

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References Cromley, J.G. & Azevedo, R. (2006). Self-report of reading comprehension strategies: What are we measuring? Metacognition and Learning, 1, 229-247. Dignath, C. & Büttner, G. (2008). Components of fostering self-regulated learning among students. A meta-analysis on intervention studies at primary and secondary school level. Metacognition and Learning, 3, 231-264. Elshout, J.J. (1988). Intelligentie en goed beginnen [Intelligence and good novice behaviour]. In G. Kanselaar, J. L. Van Der Linden & A. Pennings (Eds.), Begaafdheid. Onderkenning en beïnvloeding (pp. 46-54). Amersfoort: Acco. Ericsson, K.A. & Simon, H.A. (1993). Protocol analysis. Cambridge: MIT Press. Flavell, J.H. (1979). Metacognition and cognitive monitoring: A new area of cognitive-developmental inquiry. American Psychologist, 34, 906-911. Kahneman, D. (2011). Thinking, fast and slow. New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux. Kramarski, B. & Mevarech, Z.R. (2003). Enhancing mathematical reasoning in the classroom: The effects of cooperative learning and metacognitive training. American Educational Research Journal, 40, 281-310. Lamme, V. (2010). De vrije wil bestaat niet [Free will does not exist]. Amsterdam: Bert Bakker. Lockl, K. & Schneider, W. (2006). Precursors of metamemory in young children: The role of theory of mind and metacognitive vocabulary. Metacognition and Learning, 1, 15-31. Nelson, T.O. (1996). Consciousness and metacognition. American Psychologist, 51, 102-116. Pintrich, P.R. & De Groot, E.V. (1990). Motivational and selfregulated learning components of classroom academic performance. Journal of Educational Psychology, 82, 33-40. Pressley, M. & Afflerbach, P. (1995). Verbal protocols of reading: The nature of constructively responsive reading. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum. Pressley, M. & Gaskins, I. (2006). Metacognitive competent reading is constructively responsive reading: How can such reading be developed in students? Metacognition and Learning, 1, 99-113. Prins, F.J., Veenman, M.V.J. & Elshout, J.J. (2006). The impact of intellectual ability and metacognition on learning: New support for the threshold of problematicity theory. Learning and Instruction, 16, 374-387. Swaab, D. (2010). Wij zijn ons brein. [We are our brains]. Amsterdam: Contact. Van der Stel, M. & Veenman, M.V.J. (2010). Development of metacognitive skillfulness: A longitudinal study. Learning and Individual Differences, 20, 220-224. Van der Stel, M. & Veenman, M.V J. (2014). Metacognitive skills and intellectual ability of young adolescents: A longitudinal study from a developmental perspective. European Journal of Psychology of Education, 29, 117-137. DOI 10.1007/s10212-0130190-5. Van der Stel, M., Veenman, M.V.J., Deelen, K. & Haenen, J. (2010). Development of metacognitive skills in mathematics. ZDM International Journal on Mathematics Education, 42, 219-229. Veenman, M.V.J. (2005). The assessment of metacognitive skills: What can be learned from multi-method designs? In C. Artelt & B. Moschner (Eds), Lernstrategien und Metakognition: Implikationen für Forschung und Praxis (pp. 75-97). Berlin: Waxmann. Veenman, M.V J. (2008). Giftedness: Predicting the speed of expertise acquisition by intellectual ability and metacognitive

skillfulness of novices. In M. F. Shaughnessy, M.V.J. Veenman & C. Kleyn-Kennedy (Eds.), Meta-cognition: A recent review of research, theory, and perspectives (pp. 207-220). Hauppauge: Nova Science Publishers. Veenman, M.V.J. (2011). Learning to self-monitor and selfregulate. In R. Mayer & P. Alexander (Eds.), Handbook of research on learning and instruction (pp. 197-218). New York: Routledge. Veenman, M.V.J. (2013a). Training metacognitive skills in students with availability and production deficiencies. In H. Bembenutty, T. Cleary & A. Kitsantas (Eds.), Applications of Self-Regulated Learning across Diverse Disciplines: A Tribute to Barry J. Zimmerman (pp. 299-324). Charlotte, NC: Information Age Publishing. Veenman, M.V.J. (2013b). Assessing metacognitive skills in computerized learning environments. In R. Azevedo & V. Aleven (Eds.), International handbook of metacognition and learning technologies (pp. 157-168). New York/Berlin: Springer. Veenman, M.V.J., Bavelaar, L., De Wolf, L., Van Haaren, M.P.G. (2014). The on-line assessment of metacognitive skills in a computerized environment. Learning and Individual Differences, 29, 123-130. Veenman, M.V.J. & Beishuizen, J.J. (2004). Intellectual and metacognitive skills of novices while studying texts under conditions of text difficulty and time constraint. Learning and Instruction, 14, 619-638. Veenman, M.V.J. & Elshout, J.J. (1999). Changes in the Relation between Cognitive and Metacognitive Skills during the Acquisition of Expertise. European Journal of Psychology of Education, 14, 509-523. Veenman, M.V.J., Elshout, J.J. & Groen, M.G.M. (1993). Thinking aloud: Does it affect regulatory processes in learning? Tijdschrift voor Onderwijsresearch, 18, 322-330. Veenman, M.V.J. & Spaans, M.A. (2005). Relation between intellectual and metacognitive skills: Age and task differences. Learning and Individual Differences, 15, 159-176. Veenman, M.V.J., Van Hout-Wolters, B.H.A.M. & Afflerbach, P. (2006). Metacognition and Learning: Conceptual and methodological considerations. Metacognition and Learning, 1, 3-14. Veenman, M.V.J., Wilhelm, P. & Beishuizen, J.J. (2004). The relation between intellectual and metacognitive skills from a developmental perspective. Learning and Instruction, 14, 89-109. Vermunt, J.D.H.M. (1992). Leerstijlen en sturing van leerprocessen in het hoger onderwijs. [Learning styles and regulation of learning processes in higher education]. Lisse: Swets & Zeitlinger. Wang, M.C., Haertel, G.D. & Walberg, H.J. (1990). What influences learning? A content analysis of review literature. Journal of Educational Research, 84, 30-43. Whitebread, D., Coltman, P., Pasternak, D.P., Sangster, C., Grau, V. et al. (2009). The development of two observational tools for assessing metacognition and self-regulated learning in young children. Metacognition and Learning, 4, 63-85. Winne, P.H. (2010). Improving measurements of self-regulated learning. Educational Psychologist, 45, 267-276. Winne, P. H. & Jamieson-Noel, D. (2002). Exploring students’ calibrations of self-reports about study tactics and achievement. Contemporary Educational Psychology, 27, 551-572. Zimmerman, B.J. (2008). Investigating self-regulation and motivation: Historical background, methodological developments, and future perspectives. American Educational Research Journal, 45, 166-183.

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Professor YouTube

Carsten de Dreu is Professor of Industrial and Organizational Psychology at the University of Amsterdam and member of the Royal Netherlands Academy for Science. Email: [email protected]

Jet Bussemaker is an ex-member of the Board of Governors of the University of Amsterdam and is now Minister of Education, Culture and Science. You would think she would understand something about education and science, teachers and students. And therefore about how things are done. Jet opened the academic year in Rotterdam and spoke animatedly about how education keeps young people off the streets and how it can even stimulate personal growth. Then, in the same breath, she went on to talk about the latest trend – the digital college. A simple idea. As the lecturer, you get to stand in front of a camera to give your lecture, with slick slides in the background, in English please, and also nicely dressed. Because, we then put the whole show on YouTube and everyone can look at your lecture as often as they want to. At any desired moment they can send you an email with a clever question to which you reply quickly and constructively. Jet chatted on, but I was distracted by an incoming e-mail: ‘Hi, I’m Melissa from India and saw you have speak about creativities. I like read more. Can you please send papers please. And is there difference in women? Bye now.’ I drifted off, imagining that I had given a successful digital college, with some thirty-thousand viewers — because, according to Jet, that could just happen! Then, a meagre one percent sends me a friendly email, as Melissa did from India. To which I respond quickly and constructively. Suppressing an approaching panic attack I concentrate on Jet again. She explained that it might be better if universities stopped investing in lecture halls and used their funds to let lecturers develop their own avatar. And, oh yes, to think up something for online feedback. Because, says Jet, it is after all the genuine interaction between teacher and student that takes learning to a higher level. I lost the thread. It got even more crazy when, the same day, our deputy Minister of Education put his oar in. Those two do not seem to discuss much. Because while Jet was enthusing about hundreds of thousands of knowledge-hungry YouTube viewers, Sander Dekker was complaining that teachers do not properly nurture the real talent in the Netherlands. More individual attention, more challenges, that is what Sander would like to see. No longer settling for mediocracy, the one-size-fits-all YouTube colleges should be abolished. He just stopped short of calling for that pioneering spirit of old. As far as I am concerned, Jet and Sander can be launched in a rocket to the moon. On the way they can write a paper together, about education in the Netherlands. About the efforts of teachers and students. About what they actually want, how they want to achieve it and, in particular, why that will produce better students and teachers than we now have. Then they can give a dazzling presentation on YouTube. And we can vote on whether they may come back or not. Digitally, of course.

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FORUM

SCIENTIFICALLY SOUND SCIENTIFIC

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JOURNALISM

illustrations: rené van asselt

Psychological science is not news if it is new. When investigators first observe something empirically, it remains uncertain for a long time whether that observation will ever end up as scientific knowledge. Most people in our society, and in particular journalists, are insufficiently aware of this. The nonsense spread by some journalists leads to undeserved damage to the image of science and is irresponsible, Daniël Lakens contends.

R

eal science rarely has a Breaking News moment. Because scientific knowledge is cumulative by nature, the results of new studies are about as exciting as watching grass grow. There will be times of reaping, but that never happens with the first study. The launching of a ‘Great Discovery’ to the world, such as the cern presentation on the Higgs boson, is only achieved after an enormous

group of investigators - or actually two groups that both show the same thing at the same time - have worked behind the scenes analyzing an even greater amount of data and make the conclusions public in a coordinated fashion. Such mega-projects are not representative of science, and certainly not of psychology. A single scientist does not have enough hours in his lifetime to realize a discovery of the magnitude of the Higgs boson. The only way for an individual investigator to con-

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The general public is not well informed about how science really works

duct science is to provide small, preliminary building blocks that will hopefully sometime achieve the status of scientific knowledge. Science journalists should not confuse the publication of these building blocks for the purpose of exchanging preliminary findings with other scientists with the publication of robust knowledge that can be shared with the general public. Sometimes journalists just have to be more patient. It is especially important not to write about preliminary study results because the general public is not well informed about how science really works. This applies particularly to studies involving people (such as the social and medical sciences), where conclusions are based on statistical probabilities. A single study might make something slightly more probable, but certainly not a reliable fact. Some investigators go as far as to say that most conclusions from studies that are published are not true. The importance of scientific statistics is not generally appreciated.

Whether they are of importance to scientific journalists depends on their objective. If they want to write articles about ‘fun facts’ which will attract readers, then it is ideal that scientists publish a lot of building blocks. Some of the most high-profile studies may quickly prove to be complete nonsense, but a nice little article about them will be well read. If journalists want to share robust knowledge which their readers will actually get something out of, then they must base their conclusions on meta-analyses, where conclusions are reached on the basis of a large number of different studies. In this article, I will focus on the tendency of most of the current generation of scientific journalists to write almost exclusively about studies that are published in a single article. This is nearly always innovative research, rather than a meta-analysis where the message is often more nuanced and also more complicated. For investigators, a single study is potentially interesting to share, because this can lead to new hypotheses from other scientists, and conclusions which others can collaborate or improve upon. However, for the wider public, what use are these preliminary and still very uncertain conclusions? Considering information in terms of probability is not the usual human response.

Not truths Depending on methodological factors such as effect size and sample size, a new study may have about a fifty percent chance of turning out to be ‘true’. Journals still sometimes publish these articles

anyway. One reason for this is the commercial aspect of writing and publishing. Attention-grabbing findings sell well. It is difficult for non-experts to criticize this type of high-profile study on theoretical or statistical grounds. So, there is often nothing else for them to do but to relate the findings to their subjective experience or to intuitively accept or reject the results. Typical reactions to findings from scientific research from the general public are: - Yes, that’s right, I have found that myself; - What nonsense, I have never experienced that myself; - If a scientific studies shows that, then it must be true; - Scientists cannot be trusted to tell the truth. All these reactions are of course nonsense. People should first and foremost judge a study on the chance that the conclusions are true. And that cannot be done without sufficient knowledge of statistics. One would hope that this is where scientific journalists would provide some enlightenment. They will surely not just present the public with information that playing computer games makes you more quick witted when you get older? Or that you will not get fat from eating chocolate? Or that if you make a fist you can improve your memory? Or that you become more creative if you sit at an untidy desk? The study must be reliable and robust, otherwise journalists would not be writing about it, would they? To paraphrase the words of one of my first-year students: ‘If it is in the newspaper, it must be true, mustn’t it?’

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Unfortunately, at the moment that is far from true. As I mentioned above, there are the financial considerations involved in the recovery of the cost of writing and publishing an article. A piece on scientific research must be read! Because people are inclined to think that scientific research provides clear answers, they want to read pieces that give clear answers. If journalists had enough understanding of statistics, they would start their articles with: ‘Based in the size of this random survey, there is a chance of one in two that what you are about to read is pure coincidence’. But many journalists are not primarily concerned with statistics. Without statistics and methodology, psychology would

not be a science. I do not know what a scientific journalist without knowledge of statistics is, but I do not want to read his or her article. Many journalists judge the probability that a scientific conclusion is correct on the impact factor of a journal. The fact that articles in the top journals are more often retracted because something is not right is conveniently pushed to one side by the heuristics that they use to ‘review the quality’. You could say that scientific journals are responsible for quality control by means of peer review, where scientists check the work of their colleagues and everything that passes through the review is newsworthy and may appear in print. By ‘could say’ I mean that it

Sometimes journalists just have to be more patient

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is physically possible to say these words. Only a journalist without any notion of scientific practice hides behind the peer review as an excuse not to have to judge the quality of an article for himself. Of course it is the responsibility of a good science layman to check what he is reading. But that is a thankless task: scientists do that voluntarily, although they consistently have too little time for the tasks they should be doing to retain their job.

Meta-analyses Peer review works surprisingly well most of the time. But the system can fail with major

consequences. Such as an article being published which seems to show that there is a relationship between vaccinations for measles and the development of autism in later life. It can easily take ten years for such an error to be rectified, during which time less children are vaccinated. From the moment of publication, scientists already know that the findings are probably not correct. These days they often air their doubts via the social media, such as Twitter. Any journalist who takes the trouble, can read these concerns. Scientists are not still living in ivory towers. Unfortunately, journalists often do not do anything about these reac-

tions, and when doubtful research results have reached the media, the damage is quickly done. Psychology is seldom about life or death. I personally think the biggest problem is that infotainment (the use of articles on scientific research as ‘fun facts’) is eroding the faith in and the appreciation of scientific psychological research. The studies that make it to the press are not representative of what scientists find important. If a PhD student is looking for a good subject, I would advise them to investigate the relationship between studies that are reported on the science page of nu.nl (the most popular online news site in the Netherlands) and the frequency with which these studies are cited sometime later. I expect there would be no correlation or possibly even a negative one. Because people usually read about science via the media, the emphasis on new improbable research results in the media cannot fail to give a distorted picture of how science works. For science, meta-analyses are the real breaking news moments. Whereas each individual study is just a pixel, the meta-analysis combines these studies into a beautiful picture. Oddly enough, you rarely see the results of meta-analyses in the newspaper. The moment scientific knowledge is moulded into a form that actually makes it legitimate to reach relevant conclusions for a general public it is nearly always ignored, the preference being for a single study for which the reliability is still pretty well completely uncertain – a tragic state for affairs. The lack of responsibility on

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the part of the media is further underlined by the fact that they are inclined to hone in on the ‘fun facts’, but do not refer at all to the follow-up research when these statements are tested more critically. So, a study that said you do not get fat from eating chocolate received a lot of attention. But when a follow-up study showed that you do indeed put on weight from chocolate (how surprising!) and the amount depends on how much you eat, not a single journalist was responsible enough to rectify the nonsense they had already written.

Image Unless modern media improves its scientific journalism, it is time for scientists to inform the public that you cannot trust the commercial media when it comes to reporting on science. There are, of course, differences in the quality of reporting on science – and I understand it is frustrating for journalists who do deliver quality that in journalism there is no longer a correlation between quality, remuneration and popularity – but the focus is practically universally on new details instead of meta-analyses. Exceptions are rare (see the ‘True Science’ initiative of the de Volkskrant). If you know your way around, you can still find blogs of journalists who are less restricted by commercial targets on the internet. These types of blogs are increasingly being written by scientists themselves (for an example from the political sciences see http:// stukroodvlees.nl/), where reporting by experts guarantees quality. If scientists have to choose

between passively watching how science reporting is becoming infotainment and the cumulative nature of science is underexposed, then the question is whether they should not express their dissent or provide information via a blog on internet to share important news and correct erroneous reporting. Such an initiative certainly deserves to be followed up within psychology. I would think it is not unlikely that, if the quality of scientific journalism does not improve, scientists in future will only collaborate with an academic science reporter whose salary does not depend on how often people click on the link that leads to their article. We have neglected our image as scientists for too long now. Maybe because ‘making the press’ is currently a goal in itself, which is sometimes even a point of discussion in the annual progress meetings. But we should realize that our image determines whether or not people vote for a political party that thinks it is important to finance science. Amusing new studies (which may be nonsense) will help us less than the findings of meta-analyses. So, it is time to spread the word that the science of psychology is more than ‘fun facts’.

author Daniël Lakens is an experimental psychologist and university lecturer at the Department of Human-Technology Interaction at the University of Technology Eindhoven. E-mail: d.lakens@ tue.nl. Homepage: https://sites.google. com/site/lakens2/.

We have neglected our image as scientists for too long now

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CARETAKER OF HAIR AND

PHOTO: JOCELYNE MOREAU

‘Everyone does psychology,’ according to the late Bert Duijker, the Amsterdam psychologist who was once responsible for the classification of the different subdisciplines within the field. How do non-psychologists who deal with people on a daily basis ‘do’ the psychology? An interview with barber Pasquale Capone.

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asquale Capone (77) performs in a small shop premises in the Begijnensteeg, a side street off the Kalverstraat in Amsterdam. He is a barber who is known as the caretaker of hair and soul. In the middle of the small cluttered room are two oldfashioned barber’s chairs. The dark green walls are full of photos, letters, pamphlets and paintings. Here, in this atelier, as he calls his working space, he receives his regulars. He refers to them as guests, not customers.

Because, says Pasquale, a customer goes to the Hema, the Bijenkorf or to Cosmo hairdressers: mass-production companies without attention for the individual. And that is exactly what he does not want to be. A guest who has had his hair cut by Pasquale for the last 51 years is sitting in the chair. After the first haircut his fiancée – now his wife – said that his hair looked nice. He has been going to Pasquale ever since, for the simple reason he is a loyal man. But that isn’t the whole story. It is all about the attention, says Pasquale.

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SOUL

Then his assistant David comes in. Pasquale has been looking for a successor for a long time, someone who is able to cut and shave with a real blade. But a worthy successor must be able to do more than that. What exactly does he mean? Pasquale is not easy to interview. He tells me that I must not sit with my legs crossed because it causes back problems and varicose veins. He shows me a better way to sit: legs together, feet crossed. When I cross my legs again because I

can write better like that (those varicose veins aren’t going to develop that quickly) Pasquale shakes his head in reprimand. I must sit properly, otherwise I should leave. ‘I am the boss here!’ I try another question: how does he take care of the souls of his guests? ‘What is the soul?’ he responds. I don’t have a ready answer, so I am given the dictionary. I read the definition out loud and we have a discussion on what the soul is. I feel that assistant David has doubts about whether he agrees with his master on this subject, but in our conversation the gap does not seem so great. I don’t get many answers but I can see what he is doing. The guest is in the chair for more than an hour and his hair is washed, cut and massaged. Hair cream is rubbed into his hair, another cream into his neck. It seems that Pasquale has golden hands. In the meantime he puts one article after another on my knee for me to read; he talks about Pythagoras, then mentions Albert Schweitzer. A woman enters the shop. She often passes. May she sit and watch? Pasquale perks up. Of course! She sits down and is given a cup of tea. Is her husband waiting outside? He must come in too. (By the way: she mustn’t talk about ‘my husband’ - a husband is not a possession.) When you are with Pasquale he keeps you busy, gets you involved and talks to you, but not in the psychologist manner with lots of understanding. On the wall there are pictures of famous people. I recognize Ramses Shaffy, singer and actor, and the writer Gerard

Reve. Were they customers … er guests…? I correct myself too late. ‘You’re a twat,’ Pasquale says. Do I know what that means? Not exactly, to be honest, so I am given the dictionary again. I read what a twat is; the other people present object that I do not really fit the bill. But I do not use the word ‘customer’ again. Finally, I have to read out his manifesto. Two pages of small print on craftsmanship, that this is being lost and what should be done about it. After about a quarter of the text, I ask a question but Pasquale does not answer. He tells me to continue reading. I try again when I am halfway through, but that doesn’t work either. I read it all. When I take my leave after an hour and a half, Pasquale thinks it is a shame. ‘Stand up,’ he says. I am wearing nice clothes, but my hair! What a pity! He wants to do something about it. Laughing I leave the barber and step back into the world. Because that is what happens, you become immersed in his world, in his performance. People are so taken with him. At least, if he allows them to be. Because you must fit in his world. A young Johan Cruijff who once wanted a quick haircut was asked to leave. If you do not adapt, then you don’t belong. The rest are more than welcome to let him care for their hair and soul.

Geertje Kindermans is psychologist and editor of De Psycholoog. E-mail: geertje. [email protected].

It’s all about the attention

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The Belgian Federation of Psychologists has long advocated the accreditation of clinical psychologists in Belgian law, but independently of and equivalent to physicians. The clinical psychologist is not an extension of the physician, but an independent health care provider who will work with the doctor on an equal footing. Now it seems that the reality in the field has finally been translated into a legal framework with the ‘Nathalie Muylle’ Bill (CD&V).

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Topical interest

The clinical psychologist will eventually be recognized as a care provider History In the 1960s there was a protracted doctors’ strike in Belgium. The doctors thought that their statutes and wages were inadequate and chose to paralyze the country. As a result, the infamous Royal Decree no. 78 was drafted, the Belgian Health Care Professionals Act which provided doctors with a monopoly in medicine, and through that also in the whole of the health care system. Under this law, any care provider not included in the Royal Decree was ‘practising medicine in an illegal manner’. In other words, anyone providing care whose profession was not accredited as a ‘health care profession’ was committing a criminal offence. Currently some 12,000 psychologists who work in the

health service find themselves in this position. As the psychologist is not recognized as a health care profession, psychologists are in fact practising illegally. The doctors became the guardians of the gateway to Royal Decree no. 78. They were free to do what they wanted and one could only be included if one was prepared to acknowledge that. As a result, there was a whole range of paramedical professions (e.g. the speech therapist) or independent care providers who were allowed to work on prescription (e.g. the kinetics therapist). For years now, the Belgian Federation of Psychologists has been calling for accreditation of clinical psychologists under that legislation, but indepen-

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dently of and equivalent to the physicians. The clinical psychologist is not just an extension of the physician, but an independent care provider who will work with the doctor on an equal footing. Now it seems that the reality in the field has finally been translated into a legal framework with the Bill submitted by Nathalie Muylle (Christian Democratic and Flemish Party, the CD&V). In this article we explain the main aspects of the Bill and try to the assess what the main effects will be.

The Muylle Bill The Bill submitted by Muylle et al. consists of three sections: the inclusion of the clinical psychologist and remedial educationalist in the Royal Decree no. 78, a legal framework for the practice of psychotherapy, and the establishment of a Federal Council for Mental Health Care.

Clinical psychology The clinical psychologist will be accredited within chapter 1 of the Royal Decree no. 78 next to the physician, pharmacist and dentist, as an independent care provider. Under this Bill, the practice of clinical psychology is defined as: ‘The usual accomplishment of autonomous activities, providing psychological prevention, assessment, detection or psycho-diagnostics of real or imagined psychological or psychosomatic disease in an individual and to treat and support that person.’ What does this definition actually mean in the context of this legislation? First and foremost, the term autonomous activities is very important. This means

The differences in opinion between the physician and the psychologist are now a thing of the past

that the clinical psychologist is free to practice his/ her work independently. The differences in opinion between the physician and the psychologist are now a thing of the past. What exactly can we do now? The definition is very broad and allows the clinical psychologist to do precisely that which he/she was trained to do. We can practice prevention, psychodiagnostics (up to and including making a diagnosis), and even the supervision and management of psychological and psychosomatic disease. This last point is very important, because psychotherapy will no longer be the sole domain of psychologists and psychiatrists. What about our health care psychologist colleagues? The distinction in the ‘patient population’ is made by referring to real or imagined psychological or psychosomatic disease. So, this does not include all the health problems of the patient. Those of us who are particularly focussed on health care psychology may regret this. However, it should be realized that in the negotiations with our doctor colleagues it was impossible to obtain autonomy to provide clinical psychological care to the whole patient population. And, the term ‘psychosomatic’ can be interpreted very broadly.

Who is eligible for the accreditation to clinical psychologist? Contrary to the 1993 Act which protected the title of the psychologist, this accreditation will not be related to diplomas. The current Bill offers a framework of general criteria, which can later be filled in by the Federal Council for Clinical Psychology and Remedial Education in Health Care. These general criteria include, as minimal requirement, a five-year Master’s degree in the area of clinical psychology, which must include a work placement in this field. However, which study programs in clinical psychology and which work placements in the field of clinical psychology will fall under these criteria will be points for discussion by the Federal Council. Pending these decisions, our Federation has asked the legislator to provide transitional measures for all psychologists who can prove that they have three years of relevant professional experience in the field of clinical psychology. This is important because this is new legislation, which will provide clarity for the future but will not be implemented until 2016. There must

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be no problem for colleagues who have been working in the field but who have not undergone the formal education in clinical psychology. A solution must be found for those colleagues.

What about the remedial educationalists working in health care? Contrary to earlier communications, the remedial educationalists have succeeded in gaining separate accreditation, albeit without a separate organizational structure. This concerns the accreditation of the profession of ‘remedial educationalists working in health care’ and not the ‘remedial educationalists’, as was originally requested. Moreover, the definition of remedial educationalist in health care is less broad than was initially proposed, and no longer includes psycho-diagnostics or management of psychological or psychosomatic disease. That whole domain will be exclusively reserved for clinical psychologists. The area of the remedial educationalist in health care covers problems with education, behaviour, development and learning.

The Federal Council for Clinical Psychology and Remedial Education in Health Care A Federal Council for Clinical Psychology and Remedial Education in Health Care will be established. This Council will advise the Minister of Health on all matters connected with clinical psychology and remedial education in health care. At the request of the Community Governments, the Council may give advice on the training program for clinical psychologists. Moreover, it will be involved in the further specification of the accreditation criteria. These criteria will be employed by the accreditation committee which, after the sixth state reform, will be organized by the Communities. This Federal Council will be composed of: -- 8 academic clinical psychologists, delegated by the universities, of which 4 are French-speaking and 4 are Dutch-speaking; -- 8 practising clinical psychologists, delegated by the representative professional societies, of which 4 are French-speaking and 4 are Dutch-speaking; -- 2 academic remedial educationalists in health care, delegated by the universities, of which 1 is French-

Psychotherapy will no longer be the sole domain of psychologists and psychiatrists

speaking and 1 is Dutch-speaking; -- 2 practising remedial educationalists in health care, delegated by the representative professional societies, of which 1 is French-speaking and 1 is Dutchspeaking; -- 2 doctors – psychiatrists, delegated by the representative professional societies. Despite the fact that remedial educationalists working in health care have been added to our Council, their influence will be limited. However, the same does not apply for the clinical psychologists, who will help to define what precisely will fall under the discipline remedial educationalist in health care and its training program. All in all, the professional society is satisfied with this opening for clinical psychology, which will provide us with wide-ranging powers, will make it possible for us to do the work we were trained to do, and will give us responsibilities that are comparable with those of our European and international colleagues. Koen Lowet is head of the clinical psychology section. He is chairman of the committee of clinical psychology which has advocated the accreditation of the profession of clinical psychologist by Belgian law.

photo: herman wouters

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prospective – kees stapel

A

fter secondary school and my parent’s divorce, I wanted to join the police force to fight injustice. But that proved not to be my niche and so they thought it would be better if I transferred to the Police Academy. But because there were no vacancies, I went to work with a security firm. After a short time I went through all the career

moves there. When there was no more room for development, I decided I wanted to study psychology. I find psychology interesting and from my time with the police I knew that I had good conversation skills. I choose the Open University (OU) because of the flexibility. It allowed me to plan my studies around my work. Later I started my own installation company in

security equipment. It is now considered to be in the top five percent of companies in that sector. I have an enormous intrinsic motivation to do things well. Apart from the flexibility, what I like about the OU is that it is relatively free of obligations. That was a stumbling block for my bachelor thesis; my co-students quit, so the thesis was never completed.

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I no longer write at the end of a letter: no relation … But I did so at first

In the meantime the education structure of the OU is undergoing an overhaul; it is to become less free of obligation, requiring more students to complete their studies.

company with psychologists, my wife is a general practitioner and I can talk with her and others at an academic level. But at work I mix with security guards. The security world and the world of psychologists are very different. I want to quickly obtain my qualification so that I will really be part of the psychologists community. Therefore I want to concentrate on my studies. But, this means freeing myself from my company and that is difficult. Yet I must, because maximum focus on both my studies and my company is not possible. This deadlock needs to be overcome. I really do my best, but always have a feeling that it is never good enough. I made efforts to improve the image of the OU student in the professional field, was a member of the Faculty Education Committee and worked with the Dutch Association of Psychologists (NIP) in setting up the student platform of the OU. I invited speakers to the university if a subject particularly interested me. Soon I want to stop working as a security system fitter and start up as a psychologist. But, to find work, a CV needs to look good. One needs good grades and a set of subjects to impress people.

Academic security

Stapel and Stapel

I hardly dare to call myself a student. That is odd, because I am studying. I keep

And then the commotion around the Stapel affair broke loose. He happened

to be my namesake … We are not related, our family lines run apart for generations. I first read about him in the newspaper when I was still a student. Soon I was getting telephone calls from friends and family. I thought: Oh no! This is going to haunt me for years. People used to ask me: ‘Are you related to Huub Stapel, the actor?’ I could live with that. Now it is: ‘Are you related to Diederik Stapel?’ I no longer write at the end of a letter: no relation … But I did so at first. Now I can joke about it, but it is of course very tiresome. Diederik Stapel’s scientific misconduct is completely at odds with who I am. I make sure I can underpin and substantiate everything, that I am trustworthy. I have always had a great sense of responsibility. At secondary school I was the only pupil who walked around with a master key. My need to ensure that everything is correct has increased since the Stapel affair, although it would be good for me if I could ease off a bit. The situation and the way people react to me makes my insecurity worse. I thought: it will get less, but it does not. It has also left a big scar in the world of psychology. Geertje Kindermans is psychologist and editor of De Psycholoog. E-mail: [email protected].

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PURPOSE IS OFTEN PREVENTION

PORTABLE TECHNOLOGY IN MENTAL HEALTH CARE Mobile technology such as smartphone applications is gradually making its entry into health care. At the moment, the purpose of these ‘apps’ is often prevention. For instance, they allow the general public to quickly and easily fill in self-report questionnaires, or access information or tailor-made help at the moment it is actually needed. This specific form of e-health (abbreviation for electronic health), i.e. the use of mobile computers, medical sensors and communication technology for health care, is referred to as m-health (mobile health) (Istepanian, Jovanov, & Zhang, 2004).

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P

ortable technology is a specific category within m-health and recently its development and commercialization is really taking off. The term portable technology includes the whole range of sensors and devices (such as the currently popular wristbands) that can be worn by a user. These are known as ‘wearables’. The purpose of wearables is to collect physiological data in a manner that is reliable but as non-invasive as possible. There are compact and non-invasive devices to perform an electrocardiogram (ECG) and an electro-encephalogram, to register heart rate variability (HRV) and frequency of respiration, to measure skin conductance and to register movement. These devices have been in use for some time in various settings. Hospitals monitor ambulant patients with them (Moy, Mentzer, & Reilly, 2003) and specialized centres use them to support top athletes (Michahelles & Schiele, 2005). In recent years, moreover, wearables have become more accessible because they are now easier to use and cheaper. The evolution has made it possible, for example, for individuals to use this portable technology to quantify their lives – also known as the ‘Quantified Self’ movement – the aim being to use the data obtained to monitor and ultimately improve the quality of their daily lives (Swan, 2013). Logically, the question to arise is whether and how this rapidly emerging technology can play a role in mental health care. The use of portable technology in this sector is relatively uncharted territory. The aim of this article is to provide a picture of the current opportunities and pitfalls of wearables within mental health care. Special attention is given to the role of clinical psychologists in this context. We conclude with a vision for the future, with some of the applications being described to illustrate what portable technology could mean for clinical practice in the relatively short term.

The purpose of wearables is to collect physiological data in a manner that is reliable but as non-invasive as possible

Opportunities for wearables in mental health care For some time now, wearables have been playing an increasingly significant role in gathering physiological data in scientific psychological research (Yerkes, 2004). Existing studies can give an overview of the current possibilities. Data gained from an accelerometer, for example, provide information on the movement patterns of the wearer. The National Health and Nutrition Examination Study (2005-2006) used this approach to obtain a snapshot of the physical activity status in more than 4000 adults (Song, Lee, Baek, & Miller, 2012). Participants wore a small device on their right hip for one week and were asked only to keep the device dry and remove it just before they went to bed. Otherwise, no specific action was needed. On a minute-to-minute basis, the physical activity of the wearer was monitored, which enabled the investigators to divide the activity of the participants into four categories: (1) sedentary, (2) mildly intensive, (3) moderately intensive and (4) highly intensive. Next, people with mild (n=564) and moderate to severe (n=227) symptoms of depression were compared with participants with minimal depressive symptoms (n=3267). The results show that there were no differences between the groups in relation to sedentary and highly intensive physical activity, but that participants with mild to severe depressive symptoms performed significantly worse in the area of light and moderate exercise compared with participants with minimal symptoms. The data from the accelerometers were also able to show that, independent of a number of control variables (age, gender, race, income, relational status and self-reported health), moderate physical activity had a significant effect on depressive symptoms: a person who was moderately physically active for at least thirty minutes a day, three days a week (which is recommended in the guidelines for physical activity laid down by the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention) had 28% less chance of having symptoms of depression than one who was not. The usefulness of other types of data for psychology, such as the HRV, is maybe less evident. However, there are possibilities, such as combining ECG monitoring to measure HRV with a smartphone application to manage stress. In a study by Morris and Guilak (2009), students in higher education managed

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to reduce their stress levels in this way. On the basis of the registered HRV during moments of stress, the app provided interventions for moderating cognitive behaviour, including breathing exercises and cognitive re-evaluation techniques. The effect of these interventions was registered immediately and given as feedback to the participants in the form of visual-ization of their breathing. Finally, in another study, Villarejo, Zapirain and Zorrilla (2012) chose a non-interventional approach with sensors to measure skin conductance. They were successful in distinguishing between different situations and tasks (feeling relaxed, carrying out mathematical calculations, breathing rapidly and speed reading) where participants did or did not experience stress. Psychological research thus shows that wearables now have the capacity to measure symptoms in a more reliable and valid way. Furthermore, they allow extra physiological data to be collected, so that the effects of supportive measures and treatment can be better assessed. And, finally, they also offer the opportunity to give feedback to clients at the right moment and in the right place.

Limitations and challenges It goes without saying that the current generation of wearables cannot be integrated into clinical practice just like that. The challenges lie in both the technology and adapting to the practical situation. The technology now has four types of challenges. The first challenge is the quality of the acquired data. In 2013, for instance, significant differences were still found in the accuracy of the different commercially available wearables, which all claimed to calculate the exact energy consumption of the wearer. Prototypes of new devices, however, are constantly improving and now succeed in estimating the energy expenditure of the user with an accuracy of up to 90% (http://www2. imec.be). A second, greater, limitation is the problem of ‘big data’. Continuous monitoring generates enormous amounts of information. It is a great challenge to correctly analyze and interpret this enormous quantity of data and present it in a clear and accessible manner. Statistical techniques to identify patterns from complex data are currently in full development. A complicating factor is, however, the large intra- and inter-individual variability, as was shown by a study in

It is a great challenge to keep clients focused on their mental health outside the weekly sessions with the clinical psychologist

the physiological detection of emotions (Bulteel et al., 2014). Besides methodological and statistical support, the development of specific software to achieve the full potential of the wearables forms a third challenge. On the one hand, software programs are necessary to analyze and visualize the data, so that the information can easily be interpreted. On the other hand, there is a need for mobile applications which, based on the data, can give direct feedback to the user if required. A final challenge lies in the fact that the technological solutions still need to show their added value in clinical practice. The fact that wearables prove to be reliable and useful in controlled study settings does not necessarily mean that the same also applies for their daily use by clinical psychologists. When introducing wearables into the practical situation, all manner of barriers may be encountered. At the moment, clinical psychologists are insufficiently familiar with portable technology and do not have the background knowledge or the tools to integrate these new applications in their traditional methods. Although clinical psychologists do acquire the basic skills from the current training programs, in the future it will be necessary to further expand the courses offered or give continuing education in order to be able to respond to these new technological developments. The competences that need further development are on the one hand of a technical nature, such as the question of acquiring knowledge on the valid and reliable use of wearables and on the hardware and software side. And on the other hand, they are also related to the content: the neuropsychological and physiological knowledge that now holds a prominent

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place in the current curriculum must at least remain at the same level. In addition, there is a need to accommodate the implementation and interpretation of such physiological measures into clinical practice, in the same way as tutorials where students learn how to perform diagnostic tests.

Scenarios for the future In the near future, various applications for portable technology will become possible. The following illustrations are based on a scenario in which the clinical psychologist employs a wearable that performs multimodal measurements: heart rate variability, movement and breathing frequency. The data from the wearables do, of course, form an additional source of information, next to self-reporting and contextual information, which could also be registered in a mobile application. One use is the preventive screening and management of burn-out in the workplace. Individuals who want to get more insight into their stress-related symptoms than by just filling in a self-report questionnaire can wear a wristband for a few days. If the therapist is of the opinion that more support is needed, other options can also be used: (1) working on coping with these symptoms in weekly group sessions or oneto-one consultations and (2) personalized exercises. This type of short-term intervention is not only a way of helping people with work-related problems, but it can also serve as a means to make them more aware of the danger of stress at the workplace and the importance of attention to their mental health. A second application could be monitoring clients with depression during their treatment. It is a great challenge to keep clients focused on their mental health outside the weekly sessions with the clinical psychologist (Helbig & Fehm, 2004). A wearable with an accompanying mobile application can provide a solution here. This application gives clients regular feedback about their HRV by text messages on the smartphone. Also, the built in accelerometer provides insight into the activity levels of the individual. If, on the basis of these data, negative patterns are detected such as long periods of inactivity both the client and the clinical psychologist will be made aware of this. During the weekly sessions, they could look together at the completed questionnaires and at the data from

the wearable and compare this with the individual’s personal experiences. All this would be embedded in the normal consultations. A third application focuses on the treatment of panic disorders. Patients with this problem say that an episode is often completely unexpected. Yet, research has shown that up to an hour before the attack subtle changes occur in the HRV and breathing frequency (Meuret et al., 2011). The wearable can detect these changes and send a signal via the mobile application to the client. Using exercises provided by the clinical psychologist, the client can try to calm down and avert the imminent panic attack. In the next consultation, the clinical psychologist can use the data and the

The purpose of wearables is to collect physiological data in a manner that is reliable but as noninvasive as possible

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person’s experiences to discuss the situation in detail and to adjust and optimize the support and treatment needed. A final use is focused on the treatment of people with a binge eating disorder. Their stress levels appear to be the provoking trigger for binge eating. In addition, avoidance coping strategies are predictive for future pathological eating behaviour (Freeman & Gil, 2004). Monitoring HRV using a wearable can anticipate both mechanisms and is thus an important supporting tool for the individual. For example, based on the data, a mobile application gives a timely alert that the person is entering a period of risk that may lead to binge eating. Moreover, at that moment concrete problem-solving strategies are offered to help prevent the bingeing. At the next session with the clinical psychologist, there is a thorough debriefing of these crucial moments and a discussion about the possible reasons for the success or failure of the solutions that were offered. Based on the data and the experiences of the client, the treatment can be further adjusted.

Conclusion The applications explored above are simplified examples based on possible future developments and it is important to bear in mind the challenges associated with the various scenarios considered. Nevertheless, they show the potential of portable technology for clinical practice. Such technology is less invasive and multimodal: devices are getting smaller and smaller and are gathering more and more data, for instance by combining different types of measurements. If these data are presented in a clear and accessible manner, psychologists will undoubtedly be able to use them to further optimize their support and treatment strategies. Such an innovative approach fits well with the concept of stepped care, where the least intensive and least restrictive treatment is chosen based on the characteristics of the individual, that is: minimal care when possible and maximal care when necessary (Bower & Gildbody, 2005). All this means that valuable new options are becoming available for the current mental health care model in Flanders, where up until now psychopharmacology was usually called in to deal with psychological problems. This will, however, require effort and commitment from clinical psychologists: they will have to abandon

their traditional approaches and respond with an open mind to the opportunities this technology can offer. It is only a matter of time before the present technological thresholds are crossed and there will be a great need for competent care providers who are able to and dare to take the plunge. This article provides an introduction to this new technological world. It is also an appeal to be critical when considering these innovations but also enthusiastic in examining the possibilities they may provide in the future.

Authors Dr. Tom Van Daele is a psychologist, researcher and lector, attached to Thomas More program in applied psychology. Email: [email protected]. Dr. Tim Vanhoomissen is a psychologist and lector, attached to Thomas More program in applied psychology.

References

Bower, P., & Gildbody, S. (2005). Stepped care in psychological therapies: Access, effectiveness and efficiency. British Journal of Psychiatry, 186, 11-17. Bulteel, K., Ceulemans, E., Thompson, R. J., Waugh, C. E., Gotlib, I. H., Tuerlinckx, F., & Kuppens, P. (2014). DeCon: A tool to detect emotional concordance in multivariate time series data of emotional responding. Biological Psychology, 98, 29-42. Freeman, L. M. Y., & Gil, K. M. (2004). Daily stress, coping, and dietary restraint in binge eating. International Journal of Eating Disorders, 36, 204-212. Helbig, S., & Fehm, L. (2004). Problems with homework in CBT: Rare exception or rather frequent? Behavioural and Cognitive Psychotherapy, 32, 291-301. Istepanian, R. S., Jovanov, E., & Zhang, Y. T. (2004). Guest editorial introduction to the special section on m-health: Beyond seamless mobility and global wireless health-care connectivity. IEEE Transactions on Information Technology in Biomedicine, 8, 405-414. Meuret, A. E., Rosenfield, D., Wilhelm, F. H., Zhou, E., Conrad, A., Ritz, T., & Roth, W. T. (2011). Do unexpected panic attacks occur spontaneously? Biological Psychiatry, 70, 985-991. Michahelles, F., & Schiele, B. (2005). Sensing and monitoring professional skiers. IEEE Pervasive Computing, 4, 40-45. Morris, M., & Guilak, F. (2009). Mobile Heart Health: Project Highlight. IEEE Pervasive Computing, 8, 57-61. doi:10.1109/MPRV.2009.31. Moy, M. L., Mentzer, S. J., & Reilly, J. J. (2003). Ambulatory monitoring of cumulative free-living activity. IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Magazine, 22, 89-95. Song, M. R., Lee, Y.-S., Baek, J.-D., & Miller, M. (2012). Physical activity status in adults with depression in the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey, 2005-2006. Public Health Nursing, 29, 208- 217. doi: 10.1111/j.1525-1446.2011.00986.x. Swan, M. (2013). The quantified self: Fundamental disruption in big data science and biological discovery. Big Data, 1, 85-99. Villarejo, M.V., Zapirain, B.G., & Zorrilla, A. M. (2012). A stress sensor based on Galvanic Skin Response (GSR) controlled by ZigBee. Sensors, 12, 6075-6101. Yerkes, R. M. (2004). Physiology and psychology. The Journal of Comparative Neurology, 14, 511-514.

PHOTO: HERMAN WOUTERS

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inspiration is that the enemy? Interview with Paulien Bakker, psychologist and journalist.

A

fter studying theoretical psychology and journalism, I started working as a journalist. In recent years, I have written at length about trauma, and I also write literary non-fiction, such as ‘Een romantisch volk’ (A romantic people), a book that was published by Atlas Publishers in 2010. I travel a lot in countries like Iraq, to write about terrorism. Here in the Netherlands, people think this is scary. The terrorist is, after all, our new enemy. And this made me curious, I wanted to see these blood-thirsty villains for myself. So, I tagged along with a Kurdish terrorist hunter for a few nights. But the

so-called enemy looked anything but dangerous. The hunter seemed to be just picking up poor men in sandals. I was present during the interrogations and at a certain moment had eye contact with one of them, a very nice looking young man. I thought: so you are this big enemy that we in the West are so scared of? The picture did not fit and I was becoming more and more curious about who the enemy really was. I visited Sunni militia – citizens who are active in the resistance. We went to a checkpoint, a mud hut on a sand track in the desert. There was no electricity, it was sweltering hot. That is where the men sat, 24 hours a day, day in day out. I heard harrowing stories. One boy told of his murdered father, they only found his head.

SAFE I wanted to spend a night at the checkpoint with my photographer. My interpreter did not want to stay, but a brother of one of the boys spoke English and wanted to come with us. His name was Mohammed, a skinny lad in a djellaba who had studied at the University of Tikrit, the birthplace of Saddam. He was working for a Mullah who was one of the Salafists, a fundamental movement within the Islam. But he spoke very good English. We hit it off. I slept there and felt safe. The men said: we will protect you with our lives. Visitors were curious about the two Westerners and came to look at us. The captain of the checkpoint did not trust all the visitors and, without telling us, he concocted a ruse. He

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told them that there weren’t just two of us, the rest of our group were up in the hills. This was so that possible attackers would not get the impression that we were unguarded. They were completely on our side. They would protect us with their lives. So I asked myself: is this the treacherous enemy? Yesterday I spoke to Mohammed

But if you find the right people, sometimes you have to trust first before you believe, and not the other way around

on Skype. He is now married, has chubby cheeks and is teaching English at a school in his native village. He says: ‘If people learn to speak a bit of English here, then they will become curious about each other. Instead of seeing someone as the enemy, they will want to meet him. That is why I think it has purpose’. Al Qaida will come back to the village, there will be more attacks but we will keep the line open. Yesterday he showed me his house and I showed him mine. Our fathers have both died, we showed each other photos of our fathers. Then you see how close you are.

have to dehumanize them. What I experienced is the other way round. I learned two things. That it is easy to put a label on someone, but you need to investigate before you start believing. If you know someone, have eaten with him in his home, have sat around the fire with his sisters, then you no longer want him to be shot. What I also learned is that sometimes you just have to take the plunge and start to trust. You must to be sensible about this and not go there wearing a short skirt. But if you find the right people, sometimes you have to trust first before you believe, and not the other way around.

DEHUMANIZATION From the

Geertje Kindermans is psychologist and editor of De Psycholoog. E-mail: geertje. [email protected].

perspective of psychology, we know that to make someone the enemy, you

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GueSTCOLU D E P S YC H O LO O G / S P E C I A L E D I T I O N 2 0 1 5 43

‘There is either one psychology, or there is none at all’ (Duijker, 1959)*

Anyone who applies the above citation of Hubert Duijker to today’s psychology may conclude that the ‘none’ applies. If we are honest, we have to admit that psychology as a discipline is sticking together like grains of sand. We are used to psychologists who argue with each other about theories, methodology and study areas. One introduction to psychology as a whole is unthinkable and unfeasible. In some corners of psychology, however, a sort of Gallic village is still intact where brave attempts are made to maintain unity. We then find ourselves in the field of the psychology of religion. For the founders of psychology as a science, religion belonged without question to the domain of this new science. At the end of the 19th century and the start of the 20th century, psychology fought for its right to exist by freeing itself from theology and philosophy. However, the phenomenon of religion was not left behind with the theologians and philosophers. On the contrary, The Varieties of Religious Experiences by the great William James still belongs to the canon of psychology. Also the founding fathers such as Francis Galton, G. Stanley Hall, Burrhus Skinner and John Watson and later Gordon Allport investigated religion and religious experiences. For the psychoanalysts Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung, both good and evil human functioning is permeated by religion. At the same time, these names from history stand for totally different directions in psychology. Since the very beginning, the multifaceted nature of psychology has continued to grow, while mutual tolerance has decreased in proportion. We see this everywhere in psychology, except in religious psychology. The psychology of religion investigates religious behaviour of a diversity unprecedented in other areas of psychology. Off the cuff I can give some examples: neurological examinations looking for the ‘God spot’, clinical studies into religious insanity, social psychological studies into religious violence, psychoanalytic studies into sexuality and religion, cognitive research into illusionary thinking, qualitative narrative studies into transformation in stories of conversion, studies into attachment and religion, leadership in religious groups, the social and neurological function of rituals, the effect of prayer. And why can I give all these examples off the cuff? Because the inhabitants of this Gallic village are still uniting around their study object rather than their chosen direction. During a conference of religious psychologists, both national and international, you can run into them at the same meeting: hard-core psychoanalysts, neurology experts and personality adepts who keep each other informed about their findings. Within religious psychology, you do not have to choose; psychoanalysts have the same status as cognition scientists, quantitatives are not played off against qualitatives. Sometimes this leads to irritation on the part of students, who have to be able to find their way in the broad domain of psychology. Psychologists, take a new look at religious psychology, the oldest form of psychology. Not only the topicality of its research is worth attention, but the way it is organized might make you envious!

SELFIE

A GALLIC VILLAGE

Joke van Saane is Professor of Psychology of Religion at the VU University Amsterdam. E-mail: [email protected]

* Duijker, H.C.J. (1959). Nomenclatuur en systematiek der psychologie. Nederlands Tijdschrift voor de Psychologie en haar Grensgebieden, 14, 172-204. Citaat p.181. [translation]

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Interview with Don Mellenbergh

THE PRESSURE TO PUBLISH IS BECOMING TOO INTENSE

PHOTO’S: JOCELYNE MOREAU

Every six years, Dutch universities undergo a quality assessment of the scientific research they perform. The last assessment, Research Review Psychology 2011, showed that much of Dutch psychology is world class. An interview with emeritus professor Don Mellenbergh, who chaired the last review committee. ‘There should always be room for innovative investigators who come up with ideas that are totally different’.

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I

n football such a thing would be unheard of without all sorts of conspiracy theories emerging, but on 28 February 2010 the Olympic ice hockey final in Vancouver between Canada and the United States was presided over by two Canadian(!) referees. In their hearts they are bound to have hoped that their homeland would win Olympic gold, but with the help of modern technology these referees performed their task in an extremely professional manner – not a discordant note was heard. Don Mellenbergh (1938), emeritus professor of Psychological Methodology at the University of Amsterdam (UVA) and member of the Royal Netherlands Academy for Science (KNAW), has to smile at this parallel. Last year he was the chairman of the International Review Committee, established by the Quality Assurance Netherlands Universities (QANU) to assess the quality of Dutch scientific psychology between 2005 and 2010. He was the only Dutchman on the committee, which also consisted of seven professors still active in the field. Mellenbergh withdraw from the assessment of the research groups of the UVA. ‘As a committee we assess all the research groups, according to set criteria.

Naturally I would be able to assess my own group as objectively as the Canadian ice hockey referee. But that is exceedingly hard to sell to the outside world. If my group and other departments here receive a good review and the groups and departments in Groningen or Utrecht that do similar research do less well, then you will get questioning looks. Before you know where you are, it will be the chairman’s fault. With these reviews, which universities and research groups await anxiously and on which university policymakers may base their future reorganizations, it is crucial that there is no semblance of a conflict of interests, according to Mellenbergh. ‘It is possible, for example, that my co-committee members do not dare to speak their minds when it comes to assessing my research group or university. Or that, compared with other research groups, they only express themselves in guarded terms. You must prevent that. With this type of evaluation, it is best not to be involved when it comes to your own group.’

Review Every six years, under the auspices of the QANU, a quality assessment of psychology at the Dutch universities takes place. The independent

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Review Committee does this following a standard protocol based on four main criteria: quality, productivity, relevance and vitality & feasibility. Each research program is then evaluated on these four criteria using a fivepoint scale – a 5 stands for excellent, 4 for very good, 3 for good, 2 for satisfactory and 1 for unsatisfactory. Universities must have their research assessed independently but are not obliged to participate in this QANU review. In the last review, assessments of a total of 46 academic research programs were carried out at the Universities of Amsterdam (UVA and VU), Groningen, Leiden, Maastricht, Utrecht, Twente and Tilburg between 2005 and 2010 – Nijmegen and Rotterdam did not take part. The head of each research group provided the Committee with a self-evaluation, the five most important publications of the group, publication lists for each staff member, the number of dissertations, a SWOT (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats) analysis and a bibliometric citation analysis of the research. The citation analysis proved to be quite unreliable and the Committee was very cautious about using it for the assessment. The Committee based its first judgement on these data, which formed the basis for interviews with the heads of the research groups. The Committee also choose a number of PhD students from each university, spread over the different research groups, to interview. The Committee’s final judgement followed when these interviews had been completed. The conclusion of the Committee, under Mellenbergh’s leadership, was that the quality and productivity of virtually all Dutch psychology research is of a very high standard internationally, and that it contributes to solving diverse societal problems. One research program attained the maximum score for all the criteria: the VU program Genes, Behaviour and Health under the leadership of Professor Dorret Boomsma. The Groningen program Developmental Processes of Professor Paul van Geert received a lower score. There are some minor concerns about the number of dissertations that are completed on time and with success. Mellenbergh: ‘A PhD program is usually considered to be four years, but about 85% of PhD students take between six and seven years to complete it. That is quite a long time, but it does include those who have had children in the meantime or are combining their doctoral degree with a teaching position. My im-

Naturally I would be able to assess my own group as objectively as the Canadian ice hockey referee

pression is not that PhD students are failing to do well, but that we do not have a good monitoring system, as is used in medicine for example.’ But, in general, there is little reason to complain about psychology in the Netherlands, don’t you think?

‘True. Scientific psychology in the Netherlands, in all its subdisciplines, is ranked among the best in the world. Investigators publish in top international journals. They are well cited and are often invited as keynote speakers to conferences, some bring in large research grants for the European Union. Yet we do notice that university boards want their programs to score as highly as possible. A score of 3 is regarded as not good enough, it must be at least a 4. Understandable.

‘Yes, but 3 is not a bad score. Policymakers use the judgements from review committees to make organizational decisions, such as to discontinue certain research lines if the results are disappointing. I do not know what decisions will be taken based on this report. In the last review there was no reason to complain either; only the Industrial and Organizational (I&O) psychology program did not score well internationally. A policy measure at that time was to either discontinue the I&O groups or to incorporate them in the Social Psychology division. Whereas the Committee was hoping for reinforcement of the existing research groups because I&O is a popular course with good prospects for students. By the way, the remaining ‘pure’ I&O research groups at the UVA and in Utrecht were ranked as ‘excellent’ in the current report.’ I read in your report something about the concern that I&O will be taken up into management sciences and behavioural economics.

‘Yes, it does indeed look that way. That is not a surprising trend, and neither is the cross-pollination between psychology and biology. Thanks to the late Adriaan

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Scientific psychology in the Netherlands is ranked among the best in the world

different. Within methodology this may be relatively easy as they are less dependent on equipment and rely more on good ideas. Being dependant on expensive equipment has a limiting effect. This equipment determines the type of study you are doing. In your career you have seen enormous changes in the pres-

de Groot, the Netherlands had a great tradition in educational and school psychology in the 1960s and 70s. These days, this has largely been swallowed up by didactics and pedagogy. I am rather afraid that I&O is destined for the same fact. Personally, I would regret that happening. In the last decade of the last century, Pieter Drenth built up a fine study tradition in the field of I&O at the VU.’ Another trend that you noticed is the increased ‘neurofication’ of psychology.

‘Yes, and that did not surprise me either. What is noteworthy is that neurofication has permeated into almost all the subdisciplines: not only biologically oriented psychologists and psychophysiologists, but also social psychologists, clinical psychologists and developmental psychologists are increasingly practising neuroscience.’

sure to publish. What do you think about that?

‘I earned my PhD under the guidance of Adriaan de Groot. He used to say: ‘I consider a study that has not been published as not having been done’. He really stimulated young scientists to publish their work, especially in Dutch at first. Twenty-five years ago I first participated in a review committee. Since then I have seen an enormous turnaround in the direction of international publication. These days, if you are not published in the top international journals, you no longer count. There is hardly any attention to the quality of a study. It has to be published in a top journal with a high impact factor, that is the criterion. Because, then it must be good research. But, bearing in mind the breach of scientific integrity by Diederik Stapel, it is difficult to stick to this assertion. The pressure to publish can be pushed too far.’ As an explanation for his misconduct, Diederik Stapel said

You have been active in psychology for a long time now. Is

that it was partly due to the great pressure to publish. Is

there any research that has really surprised you? I mean not

that pressure so great?

in your role as reviewer but just as a psychologist.

‘Yes, the pressure to publish has become too intense. Ten or so years ago, it was much more relaxed. Then we also published internationally but there was less external pressure. The social pressure investigators now put themselves under when it comes to their publications is immense. But that is not an excuse for scientific misconduct.’

‘To be honest no; and I do not think that anyone from this review committee was really surprised either. Personally, I really like beta-oriented research. For instance, I thought the ingenious brain scanners quite splendid. And although the quality of research is in general excellent, to my taste none of the research programs really stood out. The research being done is rather conformist. That is safer, also for the formal, standard assessments by review committees.’

That is not included in your report, yet as review committee aren’t you in a position to raise the issue of the excesses of the publication culture?

Is this conformism a good thing?

‘In general it is. What is good about it is that in this way Dutch investigators are participating at the highest level. The disadvantage, however, is that the top is also conformist; it is incredibly difficult to get a nonconformist study published in the top journals. In my view there should always be room for innovative investigators who come up with ideas that are totally

‘That may be so. But members of review committees, and certainly those who have a long way to go before retirement, also often think in terms of a maximum of publications in top journals. It is a rat race, that cannot be denied. It is clear that investigators should publish in good journals. But, in my opinion, this publishing culture is too extreme, although I do not know how you can break through this mentality.’

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Stapel’s research is not included in your report.

‘No. Two weeks before are were to visit Tilburg for our review Stapel’s scientific misconduct was revealed. As a committee, we took a rigorous measure and all the research which included the name Stapel or dissertations in which he was the first supervisor were excluded from our assessment. That also applied to the research he had done in Groningen. Also citation analyses were performed without his name.’

‘This is not something we noticed. Review committees do not have the capacity to investigate this. You would have to look at each publication to see whether it contains improbable results and then investigate whether these results stem from using improper methods. That would take months of extra work. Now there is a computer program available to detect improbable results quicker, but it is still tricky.’ Do you endorse the judgement of the Levelt Committee that

The judgement of the Levelt Committee, instigated as a

the research culture within social psychology methodologi-

result of the Stapel affair, was as plain as day. Not only was

cally leaves a lot to be desired?

the magnitude of Stapel’s misconduct almost beyond com-

‘Personally, I think it is appropriate that the Levelt Committee has confronted social psychology with the improper practices that have been revealed. However, it cannot be ruled out that dubious practices also occur outside social psychology.’

prehension, also the research practices in social psychology in general were heavily criticized. For instance: displeasing results would not always be reported; outliers were excluded from random samples without being mentioned; if only one of four studies showed the desired findings only this one study would be mentioned in the article. Did you,

Under the leadership of KNAW member and sociologist

as review committee, also notice these examples of sloppy

Professor Kees Schuyt, the report ‘Zorgvuldig en Integer

science practices?

Omgaan met Onderzoeksgegevens’ [Careful and sound

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handling of study data] appeared in September 2012. At the presentation Schuyt emphasized, among other things, that co-authors are always jointly responsible for not only the gain but also the pain. What do you think about that?

‘As co-author you are indeed co-responsible. But compare it with a minister: the minister is responsible but cannot possibly check everything. That is how it works in science. It is impossible to check all the data, you have to trust that the data have not been rigged. But Schuyt is right; you may confront co-authors if something is wrong with an article that bears their name. That is why I would support the introduction of procedures to enable better control and monitoring of the whole research process. I think that very clear protocols are needed for performing experiments so that it is not possible to juggle with data and analyses later on. Compare it with the logbooks that are kept in studies of medicines.’ Developmental psychological research scored less well. In an earlier version of your report, the historical and theoretical research of Trudy Dehue and Douwe Draaisma’s group did not live up to its promise. The general public is sure to be surprised by these two names. Dehue and Draaisma are,

chology from the review and it was not assessed by us officially. I cannot say more, except that the committee emphatically expressed its appreciation for the contribution Dehue and Draaisma’s books made in raising the prolife of psychology with the general public. The Committee’s opinion on the study by Van Geert cum suis is also doubtful but the program was ultimately not withdrawn by the Board. Van Geert was a trendsetter and innovator in developmental psychology for a long time but in recent years we, as committee, have seen a stagnation in his research line. This may in part be due to his approaching retirement and that it is not clear who will follow him up.’ Some studies are more labour intensive than others. Can all the different studies be truly compared with each other?

‘Developmental psychological research is often longitudinal, social psychologists use questionnaires to do a study relatively quickly, methodologists can often simulate data or participate as co-authors in different domains, cognitive neuroscientists are very dependent on the type of equipment that is available. Naturally, the differences have to be taken into consideration and that is what review committees do.’

after all, best-selling writers.

‘The Board of Governors of the University of Groningen withdraw the program Theory and History of Psy-

CV Don Mellenbergh (1938) studied psychology at the University of Amsterdam (UVA). In 1965 he started his career as a research assistant at the same university. In 1971 he received his PhD, under the supervision of Professor Adriaan de Groot, with the dissertation ‘Studies in studietoetsen’ (Studies on educational tests). The same year he transferred to the University of Utrecht, where he held the position of Reader in Psychometrics. Dissatisfied with the excessive democratization in the University of Utrecht, Mellenbergh returned to the Amsterdam Alma Mater in 1975. There he was appointed Professor in Psychological Methodology. In 2003 Mellenbergh was accorded the emeritus status.

Psychology continues to move more in the direction of biology. Will psychology still exist in, say, ten years’ time?

‘Yes, psychology will certainly still exist then. When Adriaan de Groot’s influential book Methodologie was published in 1961, it was thought that psychology would become completely empirical and we would know everything. At the end of the 1970s to the early 1980s, there was talk of a cognitive revolution that would solve everything. Now we have neurofication. A brilliant development, but in my opinion the expectations are a bit unrealistic. We will acquire a lot of new knowledge with that study of the brain, but we will also discover that we cannot solve everything that we want to solve. My prophecy is that over the next ten to twenty years, something else will determine the trend.’ Vittorio Busato is a psychologist and publicist and editor in chief of De Psycholoog. Email: [email protected]. Info: www.vittoriobusato.nl.

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E UNIQU H ENGLIS N EDITIO 2015

E UNIQU H ENGLIS N EDITIO

METACOGNITION: ‘KNOW THYSELF’ • PORTABLE TECHNOLOGY IN MENTAL HEALTH CARE • TOPICAL INTEREST: THE CLINICAL PSYCHOLOGIST WILL EVENTUALLY BE RECOGNIZED AS A CARE PROVIDER • COLUMN: CARSTEN DE DREU: PROFESSOR YOUTUBE • INSPIRATION: PAULIEN BAKKER • INTERVIEW WITH DON MELLENBERGH: THE PRESSURE TO PUBLISH IS BECOMING TOO INTENSE • COLUMN JOKE VAN SAANE: A GALLIC VILLAGE

A DUTCH-BELGIAN IMPRESSION

SEE YOU IN 2017!