Exploring the Relationship Between Success in School and Executive Functions Skills
Results from several independent studies conducted over the past ten years have pointed consistently to the relationship between success in school, academically and socially, and competency in executive functions skills. Executive functions are the cognitive processes occurring in the frontal lobe area of the brain that oversees higher-order competencies such as planning, organizing, making decisions, paying attention, regulating behavior, solving problems and evaluating choices.
Parents and students have long understood that more highly disciplined students outperform their peers in report card grades, standardized achievement test scores, admission to competitive high schools and school attendance. However, a powerful new study conducted with eighth grade students, authored by Duckworth and Siegelman (Duckworth, A.L., & Seligman, M.E.P. 2005 Psychological Science, 16(12), 939–944) reported that self discipline tests administered by researchers predicted which students would achieve and improve their grades better than a simple IQ test alone. Specific areas of results from this study relevant to school performance include the following:
- Self discipline predicted academic performance more robustly than IQ
- Self discipline has also predicted which students would improve their grades over the
- school year
- Compared with more impulsive peers, highly self disciplined students:
- achieve better grades on report cards and earn a higher overall GPA
- score higher in achievement tests and college admissions tests
- gain admission to selective high schools and colleges at a higher rate
- have fewer absences from class
- spend more time on coursework
- watch less TV
- start their coursework earlier in the day
- begin long-term assignments earlier in the timeline of completing the project
Studies conducted at the high school and college level underscore these same results. Greenfield Online (2006) conducted a survey with college students across all years, addressing high school preparation for skills essential for success in college. Eighty-eight percent named time management as the most challenging aspect of college life and eighty-seven percent listed overall organizational skills as their chief problem area relative to earning better grades in their college courses. In similar studies with high school and middle school students, “getting organized and staying organized” was listed as the primary reason for academic underperformance.
In their study, Duckworth and Siegelman further addressed the issue of self-discipline which is often referred to within the Executive Functions literature as self-regulation. Regarding their research conducted with graduating eighth graders, they wrote, “Underachievement among American students is often blamed on inadequate teachers, boring textbooks, and large class sizes. We (the researchers) suggest another reason for students falling short of their intellectual potential: their failure to exercise self-discipline… We believe that many American students have trouble making choices that require them to sacrifice short-term pleasure for long-term gain, and that programs that build self-discipline may be the royal road to building academic achievement.”
This is an excerpt from RNBC’s Executive Functions Curriculum Notebook. For more information about the program and materials, please contact Cate Gonley at 847–763-7933 or Cathleen_Gonley@rush.edu.