Executive Functions and Motivation Uniquely Predict Children’s Academic Development in Côte d’Ivoire

• In Event: The Importance of Executive Functions and Social-Emotional Skills for Students’ Academic Success in Sub-Saharan Africa

Abstract

There is growing evidence that non-academic skills, such as self-regulation, persistence, and motivation, are important for children’s academic achievement. Self-regulated learning theory emphasizes that children need both the ability and the motivation to engage in learning (Garner, 2009). Executive functions (EFs) allow children to regulate their attention and behaviors (Diamond, 2013) and are implicated children’s academic success (Jacob & Parkinson, 2015). Separately, prior research in high-income countries has shown that aspects of children’s motivation uniquely contribute to adaptive classroom behaviors and achievement, over and above EFs (Finch & Obradović, 2017).

Children’s self-regulation and motivation may be particularly important in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) where classrooms are typically lecture-driven, rigid, and teacher-dominated (Dembélé & Lefoka, 2007). Usually, classrooms are much larger compared to high-income countries, with few opportunities for students to actively engage with the classroom material (UNESCO, 2012). Given that teacher-directed large group activities are less engaging and promotive of academic skills for students (Lerkkanen et al., 2016), children’s abilities to self-regulate, and their motivation to do so, may be even more valuable in LMICs. Examining predictors of achievement in the African context is crucial, given that many students complete primary school without basic reading, writing, and mathematical skills (World Bank, 2017). Thus, the current study will examine the unique contributions of EFs and motivation skills for children’s growth in academic achievement in a sample of primary school students in Côte d'Ivoire.

Data were collected in 100 schools in the Aboisso and Bouaflé regions of Cote d’Ivoire over a single academic year as part of a text-message based intervention study. The sample comprised 2,500 children in the second and fourth years of primary education, with an 89.8% retention rate at the spring follow-up. Literacy skills were measured using the Early Grade Reading Assessment and numeracy skills were measured using the Early Grade Math Assessment. Executive functions were directly assessed using the Hearts and Flowers and Digit Span tasks. Children reported on their intrinsic and extrinsic motivation using the Elementary School Motivation Scale (Guay et al., 2005). All analyses included child age, region, child gender, parental education, household income, and treatment status as covariates.

Path analyses in Mplus were used to assess whether motivation and EFs were associated with academic achievement after controlling for prior achievement and a rich set of covariates. Intrinsic and extrinsic motivation both loaded significantly onto a latent motivation variable and both EF assessments loaded significantly onto a latent EF variable. The main path analytic model demonstrated that motivation and EFs uniquely contributed to growth in literacy and numeracy skills.

Results highlight the importance of self-regulation and social-emotional skills for achievement in LMICs. EFs and motivation are both malleable and ideal targets for interventions. In particular, effective interventions targeting students’ motivation can be low-cost and short-term (Lazowski & Hulleman, 2016), which makes them ideal for LMICs. Future work should examine how to support students’ EFs and motivation in LMIC classrooms, which tend to be large and have teachers with relatively low levels of training and education.

Authors

• Jenna Elizabeth Finch, University of Nebraska - Lincoln
  Presenting Author

• Sharon Wolf, University of Pennsylvania
  Non-Presenting Author

• Guilherme Lichand, University of Zurich
  Non-Presenting Author