The efficacy of the Mind Lab method has been put to the test in a number of comparative research projects carried out in conjunction with senior researchers, most notably with Dr. Donald Green of Yale University. The research verifies that the Mind Lab method significantly improves students' thinking abilities and life skills.
The Mind Lab Method and Problem Solving
In a research project carried out by Dr. Green at Yale, children who were taught Mind Lab thinking models improved their performance in problem solving tests from 69% to 88%, while the control group improved only one point during the research period. This 2003 field study involved children between the ages 8-12, from diverse socio-economic backgrounds. The study was carried out in three stages:
- In the first stage, all the children were presented with the computerized version of the game "Rush Hour". This advanced version monitors the children's performance and collates it into a database.
- In the second stage, the children in the research group were taught abstract models for problem solving and their analogies to real life situations. Subsequently they were shown how these models could be applied directly in games. The children in the control group simply participated in free-play gaming sessions.
- In the third stage, all the children were taught a new problem solving game, "Lunar Lockout". Both groups receive identical instruction.
The results show that the children in the research group significantly improved their performance levels in relation to their counterparts in the control group, even though the latter was allocated more time in their game-playing sessions. The remarkable fact is that even in Stage Three, the research group achieved notably higher results. In actual fact, the disparity between the two groups actually increased between Stages Two and Three.
The conclusions drawn from these results are:
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The learning of Mind Lab problem-solving models significantly improves the children's strategic thinking skills.
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The children who learned Mind Lab abstract models succeeded in transferring the knowledge acquired to new fields, and the improvement in these new fields was even greater than in the original game.
The Mind Lab Method and Linguistic Skills
As part of a research project carried out in 2004 by Dr. Green of Yale University, the following hypothesis was tested: The study of Mind Lab strategies and thinking concepts improves children's "language of thinking."
At the start of the process, the children's language of thinking was measured by using a long list of thinking concepts. The children were required to choose the most suitable definition to concepts such as: decision, goal, planning, problem, process. The research group took part in a weekly Mind Lab lesson for a three-month period. Conversely, the control group was exposed to the same thinking games, but did not participate in the discussions or teacher-led Mind Lab curriculum.
At the end of the three months, the thinking language of the children in both groups was measured again while using the list of thinking concepts employed in the first test. The results astounded the headmistress of the school in which the research was conducted. "As a result of these findings, I have decided to include the Mind Lab lessons into the curriculum of all the classes in my school."
The main conclusions of this research project are:
1. The learning of Mind Lab strategic and thinking concepts enriches and embellishes children's language of thinking and considerably enhances their language skills.
2. Those children who just indulged in the playing of thinking games tended to improve their language of thinking, but to a lesser degree than those children who took part in the Mind Lab post-game reflective discussion.
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