Chew On This

NEA Today, Apr 2004

COULD GUM CHEWING (THE BANE OF TEACHERS AND SCHOOL CUSTODIANS EVERYWHERE) IMPROVE LEARNING?

New York University dentistry professor Kenneth Alien hopes to find out.

ALLen didn't plan on getting into the Bazooka business. he fit originally wanted to compare two different methods of teaching dental anatomy, but he couldn't find any funding. When he learned that chewing gum maker Wrigley might underwrite a study, Allen decided to let his students start smacking. Half of his students chewed sugarless gum while they studied, while the others went gumless. After three days of instruction, the gum-chewers scored, on average, a B-minus on a written test while the abstainers pulled only a C-plus.

Because only 56 students took part in the study-too few to be statistically meaningful-Alien's applied for another wad of funding for a larger follow-up.