Name That Baby: Why 'Non-Cognitive' Factors Need a New Name

This story originally appeared in Education Week.

As a connoisseur of bad baby names, I thought I had heard the universe of ridiculous combinations. But then researchers looking at student traits above and beyond IQ and test-scores birthed a revolution in "non-cognitive" factors in education. This appellation seems a bit like naming one's baby Not-Johnny or Anti-Sally. But as far as bad names go, "non-cognitive" is worse than being merely uninformative—it is misleading. After all, every non-cognitive factor I have encountered—self-regulation, grit, mindset, etc.—relies critically on cognition. "Non-cognitive" somehow manages to be vacuous and wrong at the same time.

One might (reasonably) argue that finding a better umbrella term in this context is trivial in comparison to naming actual babies. But names matter. Naming your baby Dennis or Denise ever-so-slightly bolsters the likelihood that he or she will become a dentist; if you name your son Louis, the odds are a little higher that he will reside in St. Louis. 

How we name important concepts matters too. (Think about people's perceptions of, and preferences for, "Obamacare" vs. "The Affordable Care Act.") The "non-cognitive" label has real consequences for education. Setting aside this term's irritating lack of precision, what actually matters is that it causes real problems across a range of areas. Three problems emanating from this term seem particularly worrisome...

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