A wearable to keep kids out of the principal's office
“Go to the principal’s office” is one of the most dread-inducing things a student can hear. But what if there was a way to reduce the number of times kids could get sent there?
InterAxon has always promised its Muse headset, which is a band placed around your head and paired with a companion app filled with meditative sessions, could train your brain to alter itself, and new research from Kansas State University has shown that it has done just that with a group of 434 8th graders. After using the Muse headset for motivation, the research found that there was a 72% drop in office referrals.
Read this: Can a wearable really make you calmer?
More specifically, office referrals went from an average of 6.33 to an average of 1.78 after using the Muse. The study was split evenly among male and female students, with 54% of students economically disadvantaged and 40% being minorities.
The meditation didn’t just slow down the number of office referrals, it also stayed with the kids long after they stopped using the Muse headsets. Students described the experience as “soothing and “calming,” and they said they could focus without the headset after doing a meditative exercise.
Even further, as students continued to use the meditative techniques they learned from Muse without the headset, they said they could still hear the sounds of their sessions.
Essentially, the research shows the potential of InterAxon’s technology, and how it can be used in an educational setting to help kids calm down and focus in on what they need to do. And not only did it actually show results, it stayed with the students long term, suggesting it could have results even once kids have stopped wearing it.
