From experience to meaning…

There is a new report that examines how college students who thought their high school classmates were interested in science classes were more likely to intend to pursue STEM careers.

From the press release:

College students who thought their high school classmates were interested in science classes were more likely to intend to pursue STEM careers, a new study reports. The results of a cross-country survey suggest that motivating high school classroom environments may be “contagious” in positively influencing students’ STEM interests. Given the national push to increase the STEM talent pool in recent years – as a result of students opting out in favor of other preferences and under-representation in related professional fields – it is critical to understand the key features of educational environments that facilitate recruitment and retention. To better identify those attributes, Zahra Hazari and colleagues collected data from students in mandatory introductory English courses at 50 randomly-selected colleges and universities across the United States. They asked participants to report their likelihood of pursuing a STEM career, as well as how interested their peers were in their last high school biology, chemistry, and physics courses. The researchers also accounted for influences such as teaching quality, academic achievement, and family support for science and math. The survey showed that only 40% of students in high school classrooms with perceived low levels of interest showed STEM career intentions in college, compared to 65% of students in classrooms with perceived high levels of interest. What’s more, peer interest was linked to either improved or maintained grades in high school biology, chemistry and physics. The authors say that future research should further investigate the mechanisms by which interest is transmitted among peers, and how students engage in active learning.

Abstract of the study:

We report on a study of the effect of peers’ interest in high school biology, chemistry, and physics classes on students’ STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics)–related career intentions and course achievement. We define an interest quorum as a science class where students perceive a high level of interest for the subject matter from their classmates. We hypothesized that students who experience such an interest quorum are more likely to choose STEM careers. Using data from a national survey study of students‘ experiences in high school science, we compared the effect of five levels of peer interest reported in biology, chemistry, and physics courses on students‘ STEM career intentions. The results support our hypothesis, showing a strong, positive effect of an interest quorum even after controlling for differences between students that pose competing hypotheses such as previous STEM career interest, academic achievement, family support for mathematics and science, and gender. Smaller positive effects of interest quorums were observed for course performance in some cases, with no detrimental effects observed across the study. Last, significant effects persisted even after controlling for differences in teaching quality. This work emphasizes the likely importance of interest quorums for creating classroom environments that increase students’ intentions toward STEM careers while enhancing or maintaining course performance.

This new study is maybe a nightmare for parents of kids who have trouble paying attention in class: for young kids inattentiveness is linked to worse grades up to 10 years later, regardless of intellectual ability or the diagnosis of ADHD.

From the press release:

Researchers studied children with and without attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), and found that inattentiveness was linked to worse academic performance up to 10 years later, regardless of ADHD, even when they accounted for the children’s intellectual ability.

Although grades aren’t everything, academic achievement is clearly an important factor in later career success and financial stability. Helping children to maximize their academic potential and overcome obstacles to academic success is important. One factor in academic performance is intellectual ability, and unsurprisingly, numerous studies have found that higher intellectual ability is linked with higher academic performance.

Another factor that can affect academic performance is attentiveness. Aside from making it difficult to focus in school and on homework, inattentiveness can be associated with other problems, such as mood disorders and difficulties interacting with other children. Helping children to overcome inattentiveness could pay dividends in later life.

Astri Lundervold, a researcher at the University of Bergen, is interested in the short- and long-term consequences of inattention in childhood. “A high number of children are challenged by problems related to inattention. A cluster of these problems is defined as hallmark symptoms of ADHD, but inattentiveness is not restricted to children with a specific diagnosis,” explains Lundervold. Are problems related to inattention something that parents and teachers should address in any child?

This question inspired Lundervold to investigate the link between inattentiveness and academic performance in a sample containing mostly healthy children in Bergen, Norway. To make the sample more culturally diverse and inclusive of a larger spectrum of mental health disorders, she collaborated with researchers in America (Stephen Hinshaw and Jocelyn Meza). Together, they expanded the study, which was recently published in Frontiers in Psychology, to include a sample of girls from another long-term study in Berkeley, California, where a large subgroup had been diagnosed with ADHD.

The children were aged from 6-¬12 when the researchers recruited them and began the study. They assessed the children’s IQ and asked their parents to rate their inattentiveness. Finally, 10 years later, the researchers followed-up with the children to see how they had performed in school.

Unsurprisingly, children with higher IQ scores tended to perform better academically. Also, as expected, the children with ADHD showed higher inattentiveness compared with those without, and also performed worse in school. However, the negative effects of inattention on academic performance were not restricted to children with ADHD. “We found a surprisingly similar effect of early inattention on high school academic achievement across the two samples, an effect that remained even when we adjusted for intellectual ability,” explains Lundervold.

The results highlight the long-term effects that childhood inattention can have on academic performance. These findings suggest that inattention could have significant adverse effects on the academic performance of a variety of children, potentially including those with a high intellectual ability and no ADHD. So, how can parents help their children to achieve their academic potential, regardless of their IQ or mental health?

“Parents of primary school children showing signs of inattention should ask for help for the child. Remedial strategies and training programs for these children should be available at school, and not just for children with a specific diagnosis,” says Lundervold. “Parents and teachers could also benefit from training to help address the needs of inattentive children.”

Abstract of the study:

Objective: To investigate parent reports of childhood symptoms of inattention as a predictor of adolescent academic achievement, taking into account the impact of the child’s intellectual functioning, in two diagnostically and culturally diverse samples.

Method: Samples: (a) an all-female sample in the U.S. predominated by youth with ADHD (Berkeley Girls with ADHD Longitudinal Study [BGALS], N = 202), and (b) a mixed-sex sample recruited from a Norwegian population-based sample (the Bergen Child Study [BCS], N = 93). Inattention and intellectual function were assessed via the same measures in the two samples; academic achievement scores during and beyond high school and demographic covariates were country-specific.

Results: Childhood inattention predicted subsequent academic achievement in both samples, with a somewhat stronger effect in the BGALS sample, which included a large subgroup of children with ADHD. Intellectual function was another strong predictor, but the effect of early inattention remained statistically significant in both samples when intellectual function was covaried.

Conclusion: The effect of early indicators of inattention on future academic success was robust across the two samples. These results support the use of remediation procedures broadly applied. Future longitudinal multicenter studies with pre-planned common inclusion criteria should be performed to increase our understanding of the importance of inattention in primary school children for concurrent and prospective functioning.