Can Emotionality, Executive Functioning, and Theory of Mind tasks predict GPA in Northern Ugandan Children?

• In Event: Educational Environments and Child Development in Low-Income Contexts

Abstract

Emotional regulation is the psychological, cognitive, and behavioral processes involved in an individual’s reaction to an activated emotion (Cole, Martin, & Dennis, 2004). Children who engage in high levels of emotional regulation along with displaying low levels of negative emotionality performed better academically (Kwon, Kupzyk & Benton, 2018). To help regulate their emotions, children rely on their executive functioning skills – inhibition control, working memory and attention. Research has shown children’s executive functioning predicts current and future Grade Point Averages (GPAs) (Samuels et al., 2016). In addition, Theory of Mind (ToM; the ability to attribute mental states to oneself and others) is important in social interactions. ToM has been associated with academic success in kindergarten even after controlling for gender, age, and family income (Blaire & Razza, 2007). While the relationships between executive functioning and theory of mind to emotional tendencies and academic performance have been demonstrated with children in the developed world, less in known about whether these relationships hold true in a developing world context such as northern Uganda.
In Uganda, children spend a great deal of their time in schools where teachers are poorly educated and trained (EPRC, 2016); resources, including books, are lacking (EPRC, 2016); and violence and exploitation of children are common (UNICEF, 2015). These problems are compounded in schools in northern Uganda as people continue to recover from war (Finnstrom, 2008). Given these conditions, we wish to know whether northern Ugandan children’s executive functioning and theory of mind predicted academic performance, and acted as mediators between emotionality and academic performance as we see with children in the developed world.
We sampled 111 students from two schools in Gulu District, northern Uganda. Students came from Grades 1 and 2, averaging 7.14 years in age (SD = 1.10 years), and with 39% being male. Students were given two inhibition tasks (Day/Night (Gerstadt et al., 1994) and Simon Says (Carlson & Meltzoff, 2008)) and two ToM tasks – Change of Location (Baron-Cohen, Leslie, & Frith, 1985) and Unexpected Content (Gopnik & Astington, 1988). Teachers assessed students on their emotional tendencies – angry, sadness, positive affect and empathic behavior (NIH Toolbox; Gershon et al., 2013) ranging from 1 (never) to 5 (always) (α’s > .70). Students’ academic performance was based on end-of-year national standardized tests in 4 content areas – English, Math, Literature 1 and 2 (averaged in %).
The correlation results (see Table 1) found that only False Content was positively correlated with academic performance. In addition, anger and empathic behavior were positively correlated with academic performance. We then performed a hierarchical regression having anger and empathic behavior entered first followed by false content (see Table 2). Empathic behavior and anger were significant and remained significant even after false content was added. False content was only moderately significant. These findings are different from patterns of results found in developed countries. These differences could be due to differences in the educational context and the different skills needed for children to academically succeed in northern Uganda.

Authors

• Anam Ishaq, Kwantlen Polytechnic University
  Presenting Author

• M. Kyle Matsuba, Kwantlen Polytechnic University
  Non-Presenting Author