Children`s Self-Regulation in Norway and the United States: The Role of Gender and Maternal Education

• In Event: The Development of Self-Regulation Across Cultures and Context: Predictors and Sources of Influence

Abstract

The development of key skills such as self-regulation (e.g. attention, working memory and inhibitory control) is important for a range of outcomes and is influenced by cultural context, sociodemographic factors, and child characteristics. The present study investigated children`s self-regulation, as measured by the Head-Toes-Knees-Shoulder task (HTKS; McClelland et al., 2014), in samples from Norway and the United States (U.S.) at 5-6 years. We asked the following questions: 1) Are children’s level of self-regulation similar across the two samples? 2) Does mother`s education level and child gender predict children`s self-regulation differently across the two samples? In order to compare the samples, we also examined if the measure of self-regulation (HTKS) functioned similarly across the samples by testing for measurement invariance.

The study included 243 Norwegian and 264 U.S. children who were given the HTKS task in kindergarten. Parents reported child gender, age, immigrant status, and mother`s education level.

Results showed a strong fit for a two-factor model for the HTKS task in both samples, χ² (14) = 19.295, p = .154, RMSEA = .039, CFI = .996, TLI = .992, SRMR = .018. A set of increasingly restricted models demonstrated measurement invariance for the HTKS task, suggesting that the self-regulation task measured similar constructs in both samples. For the first question, a comparison of the latent factor means showed that Norwegian and U.S. children had similar levels of self-regulation. For the second question predictors were included in the models, and results showed that mother`s education level was a significant predictor for U.S. children`s self-regulation but not for Norwegian children’s self-regulation, and this difference was significant. Results also indicated gender differences (favoring girls) in the Norwegian sample but not in the U.S. sample, although effects were small in the Norwegian sample, and the influence of gender did not significantly differ across the two samples.

Overall, results indicated that the HTKS measured similar constructs in U.S. and Norwegian samples. Maternal education predicted children’s self-regulation in the U.S. but not in Norway. The results highlight the importance of cross-cultural studies of self-regulation, as results in one cultural context may not be valid for other cultural contexts.

Authors

• Ragnhild Lenes, University of Stavanger
  Presenting Author

• Megan M McClelland, Oregon State University - Corvallis
  Non-Presenting Author

• Christopher Gonzales, University of California - Davis
  Non-Presenting Author

• Ingunn Størksen, University of Stavanger
  Non-Presenting Author