Self‐Regulation in Early Childhood: Improving Conceptual Clarity and Developing Ecologically Valid Measures

Abstract

Children's ability to direct their attention and behavior to learning tasks provides a foundation for healthy social and academic development in early schooling. Although an explosion of research on this topic has occurred in recent years, the field has been hindered by a lack of conceptual clarity, as well as debate over underlying components and their significance in predicting school success. In addition, few measures tap these skills as children move into formal schooling. This article describes the aspects of self-regulation that are most important for early school success. It then discusses methodological challenges in reliably and validly assessing these skills in young children and describes recent advances in direct measures of self-regulation that are reliable and ecologically valid and that predict children's school success. It concludes by summarizing critical issues in the study of self-regulation in school contexts and discussing next steps.

Associations Between Early Family Risk, Children’s Behavioral Regulation, and Academic Achievement in Portugal

“…Head-Toes-Knees-Shoulders (HTKS) directly assesses children's behavioral regulation and requires 5-7 minutes to administer. It measures the executive function processes of attentional or cognitive flexibility, working memory, and inhibitory control (McClelland & Cameron Ponitz, 2012). In the task, children are asked to first touch their head and then touch their toes and then asked to do the opposite and touch their head instead of their toes.…”

“…The HTKS was designed to assess the integrative nature of behavioral regulation in an ecologically valid manner (Cameron Ponitz et al, 2009). This measure taps aspects of behavioral regulation similar to the behaviors required from children in the classroom context and it was designed to be used in school settings (McClelland & Cameron Ponitz, 2012). The usefulness of a direct measure such as the HTKS can be even greater when assessing behavioral regulation in different sociocultural contexts.…”

“…Self-regulation has been defined as a broad, multidimensional construct that refers to children's deliberate attempts to modulate attention, thoughts, emotions, and behavior in response to a given situation (Liew, 2012;McClelland, Cameron Ponitz, Messersmith, & Tominey, 2010;McClelland & Cameron Ponitz, 2012;Olson & Sameroff, 2009). A growing literature indicates that aspects of self-regulation and related constructs, including effortful control, inhibition, executive functions, behavioral regulation, and emotion-related regulation, are associated with academic competence (Blair & Razza, 2007;McClelland et al, 2007;Valiente, LemeryChalfant, & Swanson, 2010).…”

4-6 Yaş Çocuklarına Yönelik Öz-Düzenleme Becerileri Ölçeğinin Geliştirilmesi (Anne Formu)

“…Review of literature shows that there is limited number of instruments for measuring self-regulation in Turkey, and some of them are translated to Turkish (Bayındır & Ural, 2016;Sezgin & Demiriz, 2016;Fındık Tanrıbuyurdu & Yıldız, 2014). Besides, when reviewing literature, most of the research related to self-regulation is about assessing children's behaviors based on teachers' views (McClelland & Cameron, 2012). Just as teachers, parents are important source of information about children.…”

“…According to one of the definitions, it is the ability of following rules, initiating and finishing up activities, adjusting the density, frequency and duration of verbal and nonverbal behaviors in social and educational environments, inhibiting something desired, and behaving in socially acceptable ways when there is nobody around (Kopp, 1982). Self-regulation represents social skills and behaviors that are required for success (McClelland & Cameron, 2012) and includes the control and guidance of attention, inhibitory control and working memory (McCelland & Cameron, 2012;Skibbe, Connor, Morrison & Jewkes, 2011).…”