Elementary students’ effortful control and academic achievement: The mediating role of teacher–student relationship quality

Abstract

This study evaluated the association between effortful control in kindergarten and academic achievement one year later (N = 301), and whether teacher–student closeness and conflict in kindergarten mediated the association. Parents, teachers, and observers reported on children's effortful control, and teachers reported on their perceived levels of closeness and conflict with students. Students completed the passage comprehension and applied problems subtests of the Woodcock–Johnson tests of achievement, as well as a behavioral measure of effortful control. Analytical models predicting academic achievement were estimated using a structural equation model framework. Effortful control positively predicted academic achievement even when controlling for prior achievement and other covariates. Mediation hypotheses were tested in a separate model; effortful control positively predicted teacher–student closeness and strongly, negatively predicted teacher–student conflict. Teacher–student closeness and effortful control, but not teacher–student conflict, had small, positive associations with academic achievement. Effortful control also indirectly predicted higher academic achievement through its positive effect on teacher–student closeness and via its positive relation to early academic achievement. The findings suggest that teacher–student closeness is one mechanism by which effortful control is associated with academic achievement. Effortful control was also a consistent predictor of academic achievement, beyond prior achievement levels and controlling for teacher–student closeness and conflict, with implications for intervention programs on fostering regulation and achievement concurrently.

Self-Regulation and Academic Measures Across the Early Elementary School Grades: Examining Longitudinal and Bidirectional Associations

“…In the transition to elementary school, academic demands evolve from learning basic skills, such as identifying letters and numbers, to employing these newly-learned skills to engage in higher cognitive tasks, such as reading and solving math problems. Children's top-down (i.e., effortful; see Nigg, 2017) self-regulatory abilities (henceforth labeled self-regulation) are expected to facilitate cognitive reasoning at school (Kim, Duran, Cameron, & Grissmer, 2018) and competent performance on everyday school tasks (Blair & Raver, 2015;Rothbart & Jones, 1998), as well as social competence with teachers and schoolmates (Eisenberg, Eggum, Sallquist, & Edwards, 2010;Hernández et al, 2017). As discussed by McClelland and Cameron (2012), behavioral self-regulation involves the everyday application of executive functioning skills (e.g., attention regulation, working memory, inhibitory control).…”

Relation Between Temperament and School Adjustment in Spanish Children: A Person-Centered Approach

“…As expected, children belonging to Profile 2 had a higher probability of academic failure, in both Language and Math, while children belonging to Profile 4 showed the opposite. The literature confirms the importance of self-regulation abilities in the classroom, since the focusing and maintaining attention problem puts the children at risk of feeling overwhelmed and, consequently, missing learning opportunities (Zhou et al, 2010;Hernández et al, 2017). In addition, the connection between self-regulation and learning could be particularly meaningful in Spain, where the more rigid and less spontaneous structure, with scarcity of play time, could "punish" less attentive and self-regulated children (Galián et al, 2018).…”

Lifelong Learning Application: Mobile Application to Promote Lifelong Learning and Introduce Educational Institutions

“…It is suggested that an appropriate learning style could help students to achieve a good academic record in any subject they learned. Therefore, it is concluded that the development of students to attain academic achievement must be in every dimension including the students, the learning environment, the education system and the stakeholders [9][10][11].…”