Education for Persistence & Innovation Center
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The Failure of Exceptional Athletes and Scientists
We are studying exceptional achievement among scientists and athletes and how failure experiences have shaped their path to success. We interviewed Nobel Laureates and exceptional athletes to understand the strategies that they used to benefit from their failure experiences.
Learning About Other People’s Failure to Cope with One’s Own Failure
We studied how other people’s failures, especially the great scientists’ struggles, could inspire students in their own learning endeavors. Existent evidence suggests that students can benefit from learning about the failures of others and experiencing and understanding their own failure.
Cross-culture and STEM Education
We are currently conducting studies to investigate how students of different ages, academic performance levels, cultural and socio-economic backgrounds interpret and react to various kinds of failures, setbacks, and undesirable situations, especially in the STEM field.
Goals, Metacognition, and Problem Solving
In education, goals have been shown to be a powerful predictor of student academic accomplishments. We are studying how students’ understanding of their own goals, goals set by their teachers and schools impact their learning and problem-solving across a range of challenging domains.
Instructional Media That Motivates Learning
We are investigating how instructional design could motivate students’ learning in schools. We conducted a series of classroom-based experiments with random assignments of students to different instructional conditions using technologies and media, and assessed learning outcomes produced by these conditions.
About Us
Education for Persistence and Innovation Center (EPIC) is a global interdisciplinary research center at Teachers College, Columbia University, dedicated to figuring out how to turn failure into success.
We use techniques from cognitive science, social-cultural psychology, neuropsychology, oral history, and education to study the critical role that failure plays as a catalyst for learning, innovation, and career development.
News & Events
Academic Alert
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Overexposure to Success Can Influence Confidence and Expectations
The “blinding effect” of expecting yourself to successfully recreate what you see from inflated confidence can cause people to fall short of their expectations and over criticize others on their attempts. Especially in today’s world, it is important to understand how easily people are influenced by what they see. Let’s take a look at how Wald et al.’s (2022) study investigates this. -
Valuing Future Goals Upon Facing Failures
Folk wisdom is a rich but frustrating form of knowledge in social sciences because of its insights into contradictory predictions. “The fox and the grapes” suggest that after attempting to reach a goal and failing, individuals’ motivation to complete a task declines. On the other hand, the “grass is greener” fable suggests that out-of-reach rewards are especially desirable. Sjastad et al. investigates people’s motivation to complete and value of future goals upon initial failure. -
Exploring the Power of Financial Incentives: How Rewards Shape Focus, Performance, and Post-Error Adjustments
Williams et al. (2016) explores the impact of financial rewards on participants' focus and performance in a game setting, delving into the intricacies of motivation and performance. While keeping in mind the interplay between incentives and cognitive control, the researchers set out to address pressing questions about the efficacy of financial incentives and their influence on post-error adjustments. -
The Relationship Between Emotions and the Application of Cognitive Learning Strategies
Amongst learners, enjoyment and boredom are frequently experienced achievement emotions. Research has increasingly examined the relationship between achievement emotions and utilizing cognitive learning strategies, as they are key to successful learning (Murayama et al. 2013; Pekrun et al. 2017). However, literature on the relationship between students’ enjoyment and boredom and their approaches to cognitive learning is not robust.