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Longitudinal relations among inattention, working memory, and academic achievement: testing mediation and the moderating role of gender.

ABSTRACT: Introduction. Behavioral inattention, working memory (WM), and academic achievement share significant variance, but the direction of relationships across development is unknown. The aim of the present study was to determine whether WM mediates the pathway between inattentive behaviour and subsequent academic outcomes. Methods. 204 students from grades 1-4 (49.5% female) were recruited from elementary schools. Participants received assessments of WM and achievement at baseline and one year later. WM measures included a visual-spatial storage task and auditory-verbal storage and manipulation tasks. Teachers completed the SWAN behaviour rating scale both years. Mediation analysis with PROCESS (Hayes, 2013) was used to determine mediation pathways. Results. Teacher-rated inattention indirectly influenced math addition fluency, subtraction fluency and calculation scores through its effect on visual-spatial WM, only for boys. There was a direct relationship between inattention and math outcomes one year later for girls and boys. Children who displayed better attention had higher WM scores, and children with higher WM scores had stronger scores on math outcomes. Bias-corrected bootstrap confidence intervals for the indirect effects were entirely below zero for boys, for the three math outcomes. WM did not mediate the direct relationship between inattention and reading scores. Discussion. Findings identify inattention and WM as longitudinal predictors for math addition and subtraction fluency and math calculation outcomes one year later, with visual-spatial WM as a significant mediator for boys. Results highlight the close relationship between inattention and WM and their importance in the development of math skills.

SUBMITTER: Gray SA

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4451022 | biostudies-literature | 2015

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Longitudinal relations among inattention, working memory, and academic achievement: testing mediation and the moderating role of gender.

Gray Sarah A SA Rogers Maria M Martinussen Rhonda R Tannock Rosemary R

PeerJ 20150519

Introduction. Behavioral inattention, working memory (WM), and academic achievement share significant variance, but the direction of relationships across development is unknown. The aim of the present study was to determine whether WM mediates the pathway between inattentive behaviour and subsequent academic outcomes. Methods. 204 students from grades 1-4 (49.5% female) were recruited from elementary schools. Participants received assessments of WM and achievement at baseline and one year later. ...[more]

PMID: 26038714

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Project description:Working memory (WM) is often poorer for a second language (L2). In low noise conditions, people listening to a language other than their first language (L1) may have similar auditory perception skills for that L2 as native listeners, but do worse in high noise conditions, and this has been attributed to the poorer WM for L2. Given that WM is critical for academic success in children and young adults, these speech in noise effects have implications for academic performance where the language of instruction is L2 for a student. We used a well-established Speech-in-Noise task as a verbal WM (vWM) test, and developed a model correlating vWM and measures of English proficiency and/or usage to scholastic outcomes in a multi-faceted assessment medical education program. Significant differences in Speech-Noise Ratio (SNR50) values were observed between medical undergraduates who had learned English before or after five years of age, with the latter group doing worse in the ability to extract whole connected speech in the presence of background multi-talker babble (Student-t tests, p < 0.001). Significant negative correlations were observed between the SNR50 and seven of the nine variables of English usage, learning styles, stress, and musical abilities in a questionnaire administered to the students previously. The remaining two variables, Perceived Stress Scale (PSS) and the Age of Acquisition of English (AoAoE) were significantly positively correlated with the SNR50, showing that those with a poorer capacity to discriminate simple English sentences from noise had learnt English later in life and had higher levels of stress - all characteristics of the international students. Local students exhibited significantly lower SNR50 scores and were significantly younger when they first learnt English. No significant correlation was detected between the SNR50 and the students' Visual/Verbal Learning Style (r = -0.023). Standard multiple regression was carried out to assess the relationship between language proficiency and verbal working memory (SNR50) using 5 variables of L2 proficiency, with the results showing that the variance in SNR50 was significantly predicted by this model (r (2) = 0.335). Hierarchical multiple regression was then used to test the ability of three independent variable measures (SNR50, age of acquisition of English and English proficiency) to predict academic performance as the dependent variable in a factor analysis model which predicted significant performance differences in an assessment requiring communications skills (p = 0.008), but not on a companion assessment requiring knowledge of procedural skills, or other assessments requiring factual knowledge. Thus, impaired vWM for an L2 appears to affect specific communications-based assessments in university medical students.

Dataset Information

Longitudinal relations among inattention, working memory, and academic achievement: testing mediation and the moderating role of gender.

Publications

Longitudinal relations among inattention, working memory, and academic achievement: testing mediation and the moderating role of gender.

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