In order to perform at the highest level in educational settings (e.g., students in testing situations), individuals often have to control their impulses or desires (e.g., to study for an upcoming test or to prepare a course instead of spending time with the peer group). Previous research suggests that the ability to exert self-control is an important predictor of performance and behavior in educational contexts. According to the strength model, all self-control acts are based on one global energy pool whose capacity is assumed to be limited. After having performed a first act of self-control, this resource can become temporarily depleted which negatively affects subsequent self-control. In such a state of ego depletion, individuals tend to display impaired concentration and academic performance, fail to meet academic deadlines, or even disengage from their duties. In this mini-review, we report recent studies on ego depletion which have focused on children as well as adults in educational settings, derive practical implications for how to improve self-control strength in the realm of education and instruction, and discuss limitations regarding the assumptions of the strength model of self-control.
Autism is a neurodevelopmental condition associated with increased levels of anxiety. However, whether autism is related to heightened test anxiety as one situation-specific type of anxiety has not yet been examined. This question may be relevant for the achievement and well-being of autistic people in educational settings (e.g., at universities). In this study, we took a first step to investigate whether autistic university students have increased test anxiety. A sample of 16 German-speaking university students completed an established diagnostic instrument to measure test anxiety and its components of worry, emotionality, cognitive interference, and lack of confidence. The scores of the autistic students were compared with the test anxiety means and percentile ranks of the standardization sample for the applied test anxiety measure (n = 1350). For an additional comparison, the test anxiety means and percentile ranks of non-autistic university students (n = 101) were assessed during the last third of the semester; that is, close to the examinations. Overall, the results suggest that autistic university students have remarkably increased test anxiety. Although the present findings must be considered preliminary, they suggest that text anxiety in educational settings may be a neglected significant problem for autistic people that requires further attention in research and practice.
ZusammenfassungEmotionsregulation und kooperatives Verhalten in belastenden Situationen spielen eine zentrale Rolle bei der Erklärung von proaktiver und reaktiver Aggression der Kinder. Wie sehr erklären die Emotionsregulation und das kooperative Verhalten den Effekt von Belastungen der Eltern bzw. Lehrpersonen auf die reaktive und proaktive Aggression der Kinder? Ausgewertet wurden querschnittliche Fragebogendaten von Eltern und Lehrpersonen, die N = 158 Kinder mit Verhaltensauffälligkeiten in Kindergarten und Primarstufe einschätzten. Strukturgleichungsmodelle zeigen, dass die Belastung der Eltern bzw. Lehrpersonen mit der Emotionsregulation und dem kooperativen Verhalten indirekt mit der reaktiven und proaktiven Aggression zusammenhängt. Die Ergebnisse verdeutlichen die Bedeutsamkeit einer frühzeitigen Förderung der Emotionsregulation und des kooperativen Verhaltens.
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