The Effect Of Parental Education On The Attention, Executive Function And Academic Performance Of Adolescents

Background:Attention,executive function and reading processing speed play an important role in the learning process of adolescents.However,few studies have examined the differences in cognitive function between urban and rural adolescents.There are many factors affecting the differences in cognitive function between urban and rural adolescents.In recent years,socioeconomic status(SES)is considered to be an extremely important factor.One of the indicators of SES:the educational attainment of parents is the key to the formation of urban-rural differences.Some studies have found that rather than affect the development of children and adolescents directly,the educational attainment of parents achieve that through a series of mediator variables,in which cognitive function plays an important role and can well predict students academic performance.Therefore,this study compares the cognitive abilities of urban and rural adolescents from the three dimensions of attention,executive function and reading processing speed.Then,it probes into the influence of the educational attainment of parents on attention and executive function,and deeply explores the relationship among attention,executive function and the educational attainment of parents.Finally,the independent predictive effect of executive function on the academic performance of adolescents is also studied.Methods:Students from two middle schools in Shaanxi Province were selected as participants,and basic information such as the educational attainment of parents was recorded.53 students were randomly selected from a rural middle school in Shaanxi Province,including 28 male and 25 female students.211 students were randomly selected from a urban middle school in Shaanxi Province,including 107 male and 104 female students.In study 1,it used Cancellation Experiment,Stroop task and Rapid Automatized Naming Task were used to research into the attention,execution function and reading processing speed of urban and rural adolescents.Meanwhile,whether there are gender and grade differences in these three cognitive functions,and whether there is a difference in the educational attainment of parents in urban and rural adolescents were also within the scope of this study.Study 2 further explores the influence of the educational attainment of parents on the attention and executive function of adolescents,and whether attention as a mediation effect among them.In the study 3,it investigated the independent predictive effects of executive functions on Chinese,mathematics,and English.Results:In study 1:1)There are significant differences in Cancellation Experiment,Stroop Tasks,and the educational attainment of parents in the urban and rural adolescents.2)There is no significant difference in genders of the cognitive abilities of urban and rural adolescents.3)There is a significant difference in grades in Cancellation Experiment and Stroop Tasks.Besides,the performance of the second grade in the rural group is better than the first grade.In study 2:1)Different educational attainment of parents in Cancellation Experiment and Stroop Tasks both are significant differences.2)In Pearson partial correlation analysis,with the grade-level variables controlled,the response time of Cancellation Experiment and Stroop Tasks are significantly negatively correlated to the educational attainment of parents.3)The test of mediation effect between parents'educational level and executive function,in which the values of a,b,c and c'are all significant,shows that there is a partial mediation of attention.In study 3:The executive function has an independent predictive effect on Chinese,mathematics and English scores.Conclusions:In study 1:1)Compared with urban adolescents,rural adolescents have less attention and executive function,and their parents are less educated.2)During adolescence,the difference in cognitive development of genders in childhood will gradually disappear.3)The attention,executive function and reading processing speed of rural adolescents developed with the increase of grades.In study 2:1)Adolescents with low educational attainment of parents have poorer performance in attention and executive function than secondary and higher levels.2)Attention has a partial mediation effect between the educational attainment of parents and executive function.In study 3:1)The attention and executive function can predict independently academic achievement.