Mind, Brain, and Education

Dropping out of school can involve several internal and external factors. Regarding internal factors, learning difficulties and the experience of failure could trigger the withdrawal of commitment, rejection of and resistance to school, as well as a general perception of inadequacy. Here, we show the results of a series of interventions implemented in four schools. Participants were subjected to a total of 70 hr of interventions in class over a 6‐month period during which active and nontraditional teaching was promoted. Before and after the interventions, the Das‐Naglieri Cognitive Assessment System (CAS) was administered to participants in order to assess whether there was any enhancement of the cognitive functions that underlie learning processes. The results show a significant improvement in almost every experimental group, compared with control groups, suggesting that this kind of approach could lead to a systematic improvement in the cognitive resources of students, thereby diminishing the risk of failure and dropping out.