Blair Clancy, Raver C Cybele
Department of Applied Psychology, Steinhardt School of Culture, Education, and Human Development, New York University, New York, New York, United States of America.
PLoS One. 2014 Nov 12;9(11):e112393. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0112393. eCollection 2014.
Effective early education is essential for academic achievement and positive life outcomes, particularly for children in poverty. Advances in neuroscience suggest that a focus on self-regulation in education can enhance children's engagement in learning and establish beneficial academic trajectories in the early elementary grades. Here, we experimentally evaluate an innovative approach to the education of children in kindergarten that embeds support for self-regulation, particularly executive functions, into literacy, mathematics, and science learning activities. Results from a cluster randomized controlled trial involving 29 schools, 79 classrooms, and 759 children indicated positive effects on executive functions, reasoning ability, the control of attention, and levels of salivary cortisol and alpha amylase. Results also demonstrated improvements in reading, vocabulary, and mathematics at the end of kindergarten that increased into the first grade. A number of effects were specific to high-poverty schools, suggesting that a focus on executive functions and associated aspects of self-regulation in early elementary education holds promise for closing the achievement gap.
有效的早期教育对于学业成就和积极的生活成果至关重要，尤其是对于贫困儿童而言。神经科学的进展表明，在教育中关注自我调节可以提高儿童的学习参与度，并在小学低年级阶段建立有益的学业轨迹。在此，我们通过实验评估了一种针对幼儿园儿童的创新教育方法，该方法将对自我调节（特别是执行功能）的支持融入到识字、数学和科学学习活动中。一项涉及29所学校、79个班级和759名儿童的整群随机对照试验结果表明，该方法对执行功能、推理能力、注意力控制以及唾液皮质醇和α淀粉酶水平产生了积极影响。结果还显示，幼儿园结束时儿童在阅读、词汇和数学方面有所进步，且这些进步在一年级时仍持续提高。一些效果在高贫困学校中尤为显著，这表明在小学早期教育中关注执行功能及自我调节的相关方面有望缩小成绩差距。
