The Association between Socioeconomic Status and Children’s Academic Achievement: The Dual Roles of Executive Function

• In Event: Executive functions across diverse contexts

Abstract

There is evidence that socioeconomic status (SES) influences children’s academic achievement. Researchers further investigated the cognitive mechanism underlying the SES-achievement gap. They found executive function (EF) as a product of family socioeconomic status, can be a mediating mechanism for its effect on academic performance. However, not every child from disadvantaged families performs poorly academically. For children with higher levels of cognitive function, they still perform well in academics although under the adverse circumstances. Thus, we speculated that, as a basic cognitive ability, EF could also serve as a buffering mechanism to moderate the association between SES and academic achievement. To verify this, the present study recruited 236 Chinese fifth-graders, whose EF performance on eight tasks was tested in Grade 5, paper-and-pencil tests on Chinese and math achievement were finished a year later. The structural equation model revealed that SES was positively associated with children’s academic achievement after controlling for intelligence. Children’s EF mediated the effect of SES on academic achievement. Furthermore, EF moderated the association between SES and academic achievement. Specifically, the negative predictive effect of low SES on academic achievement was only significant for children demonstrating lower level of EF. These findings enriched the literature on SES and child development. More importantly, our results highlighted the dual roles of EF. The present findings provide further evidence for that enhancing children’s EF could buffer the negative effect of low SES on children’s academic achievement and hence has important implications for promoting disadvantaged children’s development.

Keywords: Socioeconomic status, Executive function, Academic achievement, Longitudinal study

Authors

• Qiong Hu, Zhejiang University
  Presenting Author

• Qiong Zhang