Relations between preschool attention span-persistence and age 25 educational outcomes

Abstract

This study examined relations between children's attention span-persistence in preschool and later school achievement and college completion. Children were drawn from the Colorado Adoption Project using adopted and non-adopted children (N = 430). Results of structural equation modeling indicated that children's age 4 attention span-persistence significantly predicted math and reading achievement at age 21 after controlling for achievement levels at age 7, adopted status, child vocabulary skills, gender, and maternal education level. Relations between attention span-persistence and later achievement were not fully mediated by age 7 achievement levels. Logistic regressions also revealed that age 4 attention span-persistence skills significantly predicted the odds of completing college by age 25. The majority of this relationship was direct and was not significantly mediated by math or reading skills at age 7 or age 21. Specifically, children who were rated one standard deviation higher on attention span-persistence at age 4 had 48.7% greater odds of completing college by age 25. Discussion focuses on the importance of children's early attention span-persistence for later school achievement and educational attainment.

Introduction

A large body of research documents the importance of children's early skills for charting later developmental trajectories (Shonkoff & Phillips, 2000). In the search to identify sources of influence, children's early executive function and self-regulation have emerged as a salient predictor of later outcomes (McClelland et al., 2006, McClelland et al., 2000). For example, children who enter formal schooling without the ability to pay attention, remember instructions, and demonstrate self-control have more difficulty in elementary school and throughout high school (McClelland et al., 2007a, NICHD Early Child Care Research Network, 2003). In particular, the attention aspect of self-regulation has received increasing consideration as a predictor of later achievement (Duncan et al., 2007). In the present study, we examined the predictive strength of children's early attention span-persistence at age four for later academic achievement and educational attainment between childhood and early adulthood.

Children's attention span-persistence is related to executive function and the broader self-regulation construct. Self-regulation includes both cognitive and emotional regulation and refers to aspects of attentional or cognitive flexibility, working memory, inhibitory control, and the ability to regulate emotions (Baumeister and Vohs, 2004, Calkins, 2007, Eisenberg and Spinrad, 2004, Graziano et al., 2007, Li-Grining, 2007, Ursache et al., 2012). In general, self-regulation helps children manage and direct their own actions in a variety of cognitive, emotional, and social domains (Blair and Diamond, 2008, McClelland et al., 2010). For example, self-regulation helps children inhibit an inappropriate behavior (e.g., shouting out an answer in a classroom) and control their emotional reaction to the situation (e.g., stop from having a tantrum). Related to self-regulation are concepts such as effortful control, which is the ability to utilize executive attention to inhibit a dominant response in favor of a subdominant response and is based in the temperament literature (Liew, 2012, Rothbart and Rueda, 2005). Both effortful control and self-regulation are important for children's social (Eisenberg et al., 2005, Eisenberg et al., 2004), academic (Blair and Diamond, 2008, Blair and Razza, 2007, McClelland et al., 2007a, Valiente et al., 2008) and moral development (Kochanska et al., 1997, Kochanska et al., 2000).

Attention span-persistence is an especially relevant aspect of cognitive or behavioral self-regulation and stems from the executive function processes of attentional or cognitive flexibility, working memory, inhibitory control (McClelland et al., 2010). Attention span-persistence refers to selecting and attending to relevant information, such as listening to the teacher, and persisting on a task (Barkley, 1997, Rothbart and Posner, 2005, Rueda et al., 2005, Zelazo and Müller, 2002). Moreover, a number of researchers have argued that children's developing self-regulation is connected to activation patterns in the anterior attentional network in the brain (Calkins, 2007, Rothbart and Posner, 2005, Rueda et al., 2004). More specifically, the executive attention network, which helps monitor and resolve conflicting information, may be especially important for regulating emotions and behavior (Rothbart, Sheese, & Posner, 2007). The executive attention network consists of the anterior cingulate and lateral prefrontal areas of the brain, which are activated during tasks requiring cognitive control such as needing to focus and pay attention.

We focus on the attentional aspects of self-regulation because the ability to focus, deal with conflicting information, and persist through difficulty is especially relevant for doing well in school, on academic tasks, and for educational attainment (Andersson and Bergman, 2011, Duncan et al., 2007). In addition, children's self-regulation and underlying executive function abilities experience rapid development during the preschool years and help lay the foundation for later development (Diamond, 2002).

The present study included a parent-report measure that captured a specific aspect of self-regulation, attention span-persistence. Although not a comprehensive measure of self-regulation, data were collected in a large longitudinal study spanning over 30 years and our terminology reflects what was measured at the time (in the late 1970s). In an era of considerable conceptual debate about terms and the definitions of constructs (McClelland & Cameron, 2012), it is important to be specific about what is being measured. Thus, because a comprehensive measure of self-regulation was not available in the overall longitudinal study, we use the term attention span-persistence to best capture what was measured, and define it as the ability to focus, attend to relevant information, and persist on a task. Our decision to use this terminology is also supported by recent studies which have documented the importance of attention and task persistence for later achievement and educational outcomes (Andersson and Bergman, 2011, Deater-Deckard et al., 2005, Duncan et al., 2007).

Aspects of children's attention span-persistence have been linked to a number of social and academic outcomes in childhood. For example, a large literature has found that attention span-persistence and related constructs (e.g., self-regulation, executive function, effortful control) predict stronger social outcomes such as social competence and maladjustment (Blair, 2002, Eisenberg et al., 2010), and are an important component of social-emotional interventions (Riggs, Jahromi, Razza, Dillworth-Bart, & Mueller, 2006). Although studies have used a variety of definitions and constructs, they all include measures which tap aspects of children's ability to focus attention and persist. Thus, we review research that includes constructs of behavioral regulation, executive function, learning-related skills, and effortful control because all these studies include aspects of attention span-persistence in the way they define and operationalize their constructs.

A number of recent studies have documented the importance of attention span-persistence for short-term achievement outcomes after accounting for initial achievement levels and important variables such as child IQ. For example, in one study examining behavioral regulation, the gains children made in early behavioral regulation over the preschool year significantly predicted the gains they made in reading, math, and vocabulary after controlling for initial behavioral regulation and achievement levels (McClelland, Cameron, Connor, et al., 2007). Related research found that children's behavioral regulation in the fall of kindergarten predicted end-of-year reading, math, and vocabulary achievement and gains made in math achievement (Ponitz, McClelland, Matthews, & Morrison, 2009). Another study documented that attention span-persistence was positively associated with cognitive and achievement measures in kindergarten and first grade children (Deater-Deckard et al., 2005). Other research examining similar constructs (e.g., learning-related skills, which include attention span-persistence in the definition of the construct) found that children's learning-related skills at kindergarten significantly predicted reading and math skills between kindergarten and sixth grade and gains in reading and math between kindergarten and second grade beyond the influence of child IQ, initial achievement levels, and a host of background characteristics (McClelland et al., 2006, McClelland et al., 2000).

Aspects of attention span-persistence have also predicted long-term achievement and educational attainment outcomes. For example, attention at ages 5–6 was significantly predictive of reading and math achievement between kindergarten and early adolescence with average effect sizes ranging from .08 for reading and .11 for math (Duncan et al., 2007). Although measured in adolescence, a recent study by Andersson and Bergman (2011) provides additional evidence of the importance of attention span-persistence (called task persistence) for later achievement and success. This study found that task persistence in early adolescence (age 13) predicted grades later in adolescence, and income, occupational level and educational attainment in middle adulthood for men, with effect sizes ranging from .08 for educational attainment to .34 for occupational level (Andersson & Bergman, 2011). Other relevant research has documented that early self-control, which included attention span-persistence in the operationalization of the construct, predicted physical health, substance dependence, income, and criminal offenses in adulthood (Moffitt et al., 2011). Research has also linked attention deficits to poorer school attainment and academic outcomes. For example, a recent study found that teacher ratings of attention problems at age 6 significantly predicted math and reading achievement at age 17 after controlling for a number of background variables, including child IQ (Breslau et al., 2009).

Together, this research supports the notion that paying attention and persisting on tasks are foundational skills that are critical early in life and continue to positively predict a variety of social and academic outcomes throughout childhood and into adulthood. For example, focusing attention and persisting through difficult tasks is especially important for accomplishing major life goals such as gaining a college degree. Other research has noted that academic achievement and educational attainment is significantly predicted by parental socioeconomic status (SES), individual cognitive abilities previous academic performance, and occupational and educational aspirations (Sewell, Halle, & Portes, 1969). Based on this and other research reviewed above, we predicted that early attention span-persistence would be a substantive and significant predictor of later achievement and college completion but that variables such as parental SES, early cognitive abilities and academic achievement, gender, and age may play a role (Sirin, 2005, Strenze, 2007). Thus, the present study examined the importance of attention span-persistence for predicting reading and math achievement at age 21 and college completion by age 25 controlling for background variables previously found to predict educational attainment (Sewell et al., 1969, Sirin, 2005).

Although research has found connections between attention span-persistence and both reading and mathematics achievement, relations between aspects of attention and math have been especially strong in early and middle childhood compared to reading (Blair and Razza, 2007, Cameron Ponitz et al., 2009, Duncan et al., 2007). In one study, effect sizes of .56 were found for behavioral regulation (including attention span-persistence) predicting math levels compared to effect sizes of .27 for predicting reading. Moreover, this study found that behavioral regulation predicted math but not reading gains over the kindergarten year (Cameron Ponitz et al., 2009). Other research has found that children's early attention predicted more variance in math achievement (with larger effect sizes) between childhood and adolescence compared to reading achievement (Duncan et al., 2007). Together, this research suggests that early attention may be more strongly related to math skills in childhood and adolescence compared to reading skills, but it is less clear whether this persists into early adulthood.

Although research is still emerging, a few reasons for the link between attention and math have been proposed, including having to focus and pay attention to relevant information when solving math problems, and persisting as problems increase in complexity and difficulty (Blair and Razza, 2007, Cameron Ponitz et al., 2009). Relations between attention and reading have also been found especially in early childhood when early literacy and reading skills are heavily emphasized in classroom settings (McClelland, Cameron, Connor, et al., 2007).

Overall, this research suggests that children with strong attention span-persistence do well in school because they can focus on relevant information while ignoring distractions, monitor their progress, and resolve conflicting information in order to complete tasks. These skills experience rapid development during the preschool years, and are foundational for later social and academic outcomes including completing college in early adulthood.

Although the importance of early attention span-persistence for academic achievement outcomes has been established after controlling for initial achievement levels, it is possible that these relations may be mediated by early achievement levels, especially in the beginning of a child's academic career. This is based on research finding that academic trajectories tend to be established early in elementary school (Alexander, Entwisle, & Dauber, 1993). For example, children's early attention span-persistence at age 4 may be related to math or reading achievement at age 21 through the influence of attention span-persistence on achievement levels at age 7 and the subsequent influence of achievement levels at age 7 on math or reading achievement at age 21. This hypothesis would suggest that age 4 attention span-persistence helps children do better on reading or math achievement at age 7, which then predicts stronger reading or math achievement at age 21. Thus, the relation between early attention and later achievement would be mostly mediated by early achievement levels at the beginning of school.

A few studies have examined the relative importance of early skills on later academic outcomes, and the complex pathways between early attention and later achievement. For example, one study found that early achievement was a stronger predictor of later achievement than was early attention (Duncan et al., 2007) but did not specify pathways of influence. Another recent study focused on the direction of these relations and found that early learning-related behaviors predicted subsequent literacy achievement but that literacy skills did not significantly predict subsequent learning-related behaviors (Stipek, Newton, & Chudgar, 2010). Finally, one study found that classroom behavior (Interest-Participation and Attention Span-Restlessness) was significantly related to children's math performance in first grade and fourth grade, and that some of these relations were mediated through early math scores (Alexander et al., 1993).

In addition to the notion that achievement levels early in elementary school mediate relations between early attention span-persistence and later achievement levels, it is also plausible that attention span-persistence predicts college completion by age 25 through achievement levels towards the end of formal schooling (e.g., age 21). This is based on research finding that college achievement levels significantly predict college completion (Buchmann and DiPrete, 2006, Ewert, 2010, Velez, 1985). Thus, it is possible that children's early attention span-persistence is related to stronger reading and math levels later in an individual's academic career (age 21), which would then be related to greater odds of completing college by age 25.

To our knowledge, no study has examined whether achievement levels in childhood significantly mediate relations between early attention span-persistence and either achievement in early adulthood or college completion. The present study sought to add specificity to the pathways through which early attention may predict later achievement. We examined direct and indirect pathways between early attention span-persistence on later achievement and educational attainment (college completion) by testing if age 4 attention span-persistence predicts reading and math achievement at age 21 and college completion by age 25 directly or if the influence is fully mediated by age 7 or age 21 achievement levels.

The present study examined whether children's attention span-persistence, as rated by parents at age 4, significantly predict later reading and math skills at age 21, and the odds of completing college by age 25. We had three hypotheses: First, based on previous research (Breslau et al., 2009, Duncan et al., 2007), we expected that higher ratings of attention span-persistence at age 4 would significantly predict stronger reading and especially math skills in early adulthood (age 21). Second, we predicted that attention span-persistence at age 4 would predict the odds of completing college by age 25. In other words, we expected that children with strong attention span-persistence ratings at age 4 would have significantly greater odds of completing college by age 25. This hypothesis was based on research supporting the importance of early attention span-persistence for later achievement and educational outcomes (Andersson & Bergman, 2011).

Third, we examined whether age 7 reading or math achievement significantly mediated relations between attention span-persistence at age 4, and reading and math achievement at age 21. We predicted that higher achievement at age 7 would significantly predict higher achievement at age 21, but that the path between age 4 attention span-persistence and later achievement would be stronger than the indirect pathway through age 7 achievement levels. In other words, we expected that the direct path between age 4 attention span-persistence and age 21 achievement levels would not be fully mediated by achievement levels at age 7. We also examined whether the path between early attention span-persistence and college completion would be fully mediated by age 7 and age 21 reading and math levels. We predicted that attention span-persistence at age 4 would predict greater odds of completing college by age 25 and would not be fully mediated by age 7 or age 21 reading or math achievement. This hypothesis was based on recent research finding that attention span-persistence and self-control early in life (e.g., childhood and adolescence) significantly predicts later educational attainment, even after intellectual ability and early achievement were taken into account (Andersson and Bergman, 2011, Moffitt et al., 2011).