The impact of the SMART program on cognitive and academic skills: A systematic review and meta‐analysis

May, R. J., Tyndall, I., McTiernan, A., Roderique‐Davies, G. and McLoughlin, S. (2022) The impact of the SMART program on cognitive and academic skills: A systematic review and meta‐analysis. British Journal of Educational Technology, 53 (5). pp. 1244-1261. ISSN 1467-8535

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Abstract

Online interventions promoted to enhance cognitive ability hold great appeal for their potential positive impact in social, employment, and educational domains. Cognitive training programs have, thus far, not been shown to influence performance on tests of general cognitive aptitude. Strengthening Mental Abilities with Relational Training (SMART) is an online program that claims to raise intelligence quotient (IQ). This systematic review and meta-analysis evaluates the effect of SMART on indices of cognitive aptitude and academic performance. The review protocol was registered at PROSPERO (CRD42019132404). A systematic literature search of bibliographic databases (ERIC, PsycINFO, PubMed, Applied Social Sciences Index and Abstracts, Scopus, Proquest Psychology) identified five studies (N = 195) that met the criterion for inclusion. The risk of bias was assessed using the Cochrane Collaboration Risk of Bias ‘RoB 2’ tool. Overall, there was a moderate impact of SMART on measures of nonverbal IQ (g = 0.57, 95% CI [0.24, 0.89]). There was insufficient evidence to determine the impact of SMART on any other domain. All studies included in the review were judged to be at a high risk of bias for their primary outcome. Despite the methodological limitations of published studies to date, these initial findings suggest that a large-scale study of SMART is warranted.

Publication Type: Articles
Additional Information: This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs License, which permits use and distribution in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited, the use is non-commercial and no modifications or adaptations are made. The data and data analysis scripts are available at: https://osf.io/d94bj/?view_only=645483b3de1b46f5a6fb8830fe1e53d6 and the systematic review was preregistered with PROSPERO (PROSPERO 2019: CRD42019132404).
Uncontrolled Keywords: Relational Training, cognitive training, intelligence, relational frame theory, education, SMART
Subjects: B Philosophy. Psychology. Religion > BF Psychology
H Social Sciences > H Social Sciences (General)
L Education > L Education (General)
Divisions: Research Entities > POWER Centre
Academic Areas > Institute of Education, Social and Life Sciences > Counselling
Related URLs:
SWORD Depositor: Publications Router Jisc
Depositing User: Publications Router Jisc
Date Deposited: 05 Apr 2022 13:57
Last Modified: 25 Aug 2022 09:33
URI: https://eprints.chi.ac.uk/id/eprint/6201

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