Focus on Building Background Knowledge to Make Learning Easier

Our motivational hardwiring encourages us to find our niche and pursue relative strengths. The gap in STEM participation between men and women may be due to people choosing to major in their best fields, inadvertently pushing women away from STEM fields. Focusing on strengths and avoiding weaknesses can be misleading, as it may reinforce the belief that we're only good at certain things. The reality is that we have the potential to learn almost anything, just at different rates. When struggling with a subject, focusing on background knowledge can expand our ability to understand new information and make learning easier.