Effects of perceived school well‐being and negative emotionality on students' attentional bias for academic stressors

Abstract

The present data indicate a perceptual bias for the detection of academic threats. Within the school practice, teachers should promote SWB and devote specific attention to students with high negative emotionality to reduce a biased allocation of attention in response to school-related stressors.

Attentional Bias for Academic Stressors and Classroom Climate Predict Adolescents’ Grades and Socioemotional Functioning

“…Adolescents completed a dot‐probe detection task to register attentional patterns toward or away from an academic threatening word (such as bad grade, test, or interrogation ), and two groups of students were identified with high versus low school well‐being, respectively. Youths who experienced distress within the school context were more likely to show a greater bias toward school‐related stressors (Scrimin et al, ). These data suggest that young students, when presented with stimuli which represent significant stressors in their everyday life, are prone to direct their attention toward them, especially when they are experiencing higher situational distress within the school environment (Derryberry & Reed, ).…”

“…For example, a student who is tested by the teacher in front of his/her peers may experience severe fear, especially if caught unprepared. Because individuals are more likely to be vigilant to threat cues relevant to their current concerns (e.g., LoBue, ), youths learn to make a perceptual match between an academic‐related stressor (such as being tested by the teacher) and something fear‐relevant (Scrimin et al, ). This happens because the presence of a negative experience leads to a maximally adaptive behavior, which allows the rapid detection of these “dangerous” stimuli (LoBue, ).…”

“…Research for decades has highlighted the connection between learning and cognitive or motivational aspects (Ainley, 2006). Yet, more recently studies have started to focus on factors lying outside students' control, such as their attention allocation patterns and environmental variables (Putwain, Langdale, Woods, & Nicholson, 2011;Scrimin, Moscardino, Alto e, & Mason, 2016). Specifically, attention allocation patterns have been studied with the aim of identifying possible attentional biases.…”

“…More recently, an attention allocation bias has also been found in response to academic stressors (Putwain et al, 2011;Scrimin et al, 2016). Every day at school, students experience a number of events that may be perceived as threatening (Phillips, 1993).…”

Health Effects of Instruction Intensity: Evidence from a Natural Experiment in German High-Schools

“…Elias (1989) provides a review of early psychological studies on mental health of students and concludes that stress in school is a key factor detrimental to students mental health -a relation also found in more recent studies (Raufelder et al, 2013;Scrimin et al, 2016).…”