The Relationship of Effortful Control to Academic Achievement via Children’s Learning-Related Behaviors

Abstract

Effortful control (EC) is a temperamental self-regulatory capacity, defined as the efficiency of executive attention [1], which is related to individual differences in self-regulation. Although effortful control covers some dispositional self-regulatory abilities important to cope with social demands of successful adaptation to school, such as attention regulation, individual differences in EC have recently been associated with school functioning through academic achievement including the efficient use of learning-related behaviors, which have been found to be a necessary precursor of learning and they refer to a set of children’s behaviors that involve organizational skills and appropriate habits of study. Therefore, the aim of this study is to review the literature on EC’s relationship to academic achievement via learning-related behaviors, which reflect the use of metacognitive control processes in kindergarten and elementary school students. The findings indicate that EC affects academic achievement through the facilitation of the efficient use of metacognitive control processes.