Children’s developing work habits from middle childhood to early adolescence: Cascading effects for academic outcomes in adolescence and adulthood.

Abstract

Children's work habits at school include being a hard worker, turning in work on time, following classroom rules, and putting forward one's best effort. Models on youth character, noncognitive skills, and social-emotional learning suggest that self-management skills like work habits are critical for individuals' subsequent academic success. Using data from 1,124 children in the NICHD Study of Early Childcare and Youth Development (49% female; 77% White), we examined children's developing work habits from first to sixth grade and their developmental cascading effects on academic outcomes at the beginning and end of high school as well as at age 26. The findings on differential stability of work habits (i.e., bivariate correlations) suggest that children were likely to maintain their relative position among peers from first to sixth grade. The complementary findings on mean-level changes from the latent growth curves suggest that children's work habits exhibited mean-level increases over the same period, meaning that children's work habits became more advanced from first to sixth grade. Models used to examine the developmental cascades of work habits suggest that children's work habits at first grade and the growth in children's work habits from first to sixth grade (a) directly predicted their academic outcomes at the beginning and the end of high school, and (b) indirectly predicted their educational attainment at age 26 through their academic outcomes during adolescence. These findings underscore the importance of foundational noncognitive skills during middle childhood that predict individuals' academic outcomes up to 20 years later in adulthood.

The Role of Organized Activities in Supporting Youth Moral and Civic Character Development: A Review of the Literature

“…Among the 44 civic studies, the majority of studies examined relations between activities and character development during the middle adolescent to late adolescent and adulthood years with only a single study that examined these relations during (late) childhood (5th grade) to the early adolescent years (Zarrett et al 2009). More research is needed to examine the nature of activity-character development processes earlier in childhood, as early exposure is likely to make a difference (Ma et al 2020;Simpkins et al 2020) and can inform ways to optimize on early initiatives during childhood (Astuto and Ruck 2010).…”

“…Lastly, processes for nurturing moral and civic development likely start early in development (Astuto and Ruck 2010;Ma et al, 2020;Simpkins et al, 2020). Despite many studies having rigorous longitudinal designs, some of which extend into middle adulthood, the vast majority of studies in this review focused on experiences and character growth within activities during the adolescent years, and no studies considered how variations by youth development/age may moderate the relations between activities and civic and moral outcomes.…”

Longitudinal Links Between Profiles of Social Emotional Behaviors in Childhood and Functioning in Early Adolescence

“…We then examine whether these SEL profiles predict variations in important youth social and academic outcomes in early adolescence (i.e., Grade 6 academic performance, peer competence, and aggressive behaviors). These outcome variables are included because they represent foundational school-related behaviors that are impactful for adolescents’ later positive academic and social development (Laible et al, 2016; Ma et al, 2020; Simpkins et al, 2020).…”

The Development of Informal Competences Between the End of Compulsory School and Early Adulthood

“…Kinder, die sich selbst als wenig anstrengungsbereit und persistent einschätzten, werden eher in Sekundarschultypen mit tieferem Anforderungsniveau eingestuft (Steinhoff und Buchmann 2017). Da Jugendliche einen grossen Teil ihrer Zeit in der Schule oder dem Ausbildungsbetrieb verbringen, ist der Ausbildungskontext gleichzeitig einer der wichtigsten Einflussfaktoren für die Entwicklung informeller Kompetenzen (Häfeli et al 1988;Simpkins et al 2020).…”