The researchers talked about the factor influencing the academic success of elementary school students

Russian and foreign psychologists have found that the success of schoolchildren's education largely depends on the amount of working memory, and not only on speech flexibility. This conclusion was reached by researchers from Sechenov University, York University in Toronto and the National Research University Higher School of Economics, after studying the thinking patterns of children aged six to 11 years. This was reported to Izvestia on January 28.

"Every day, the human brain is faced with a huge flow of information, and its task is to organize this chaos. A person, without hesitation, unconsciously sorts objects, events and concepts into categories "edible – inedible", "dangerous – safe", "alive – inanimate". This is necessary in order to memorize something new, draw conclusions, solve problems and generally make decisions," said Anastasia Lyashenko, one of the authors of the study, an assistant at the Department of Pedagogy and Medical Psychology at Sechenov University.

In their work, the scientists relied on the theory of two systems of categorical learning. The first, implicit, is formed early and works automatically, creating generalized images in the mind, for example, an "average" dog, regardless of its size or color. The second system is related to speech and rules — it allows you to identify key features and formulate conclusions, and is actively developing closer to the age of nine or ten.

The study involved 60 schoolchildren and 30 adults. The subjects were offered tasks for verbal flexibility, as well as a series of experiments with fantastic creatures that differed in several parameters. The participants had to determine which "house" each creature lived in, based on a set of characteristics, among which one was crucial. Additionally, the ability to keep several conditions in mind at the same time and ignore unimportant details was tested.

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The results showed that with age, both the indicators of speech flexibility and the amount of working memory increase, but it is the latter factor that is most strongly associated with the success of categorization. The more information a child is able to hold and process at the same time, the more effectively he forms new concepts and solves problems.

The researchers also used an eye tracker to track the participants' eye movements. It turned out that adults quickly find the main feature and focus on it, while children distribute attention between all the details. Even schoolchildren who tried to act according to "adult" logic continued to consider the object as a whole, which indicates the predominance of an implicit system of thinking.

According to Lyashenko, these data help to look at the learning process in a different way. Scientists believe that seven- to eight-year-olds should not be expected to instantly learn complex rules, as they learn through the accumulation of examples and a broad perception of information. To develop the so-called mental processor, psychologists recommend board games and puzzles that require keeping several conditions in mind at the same time.

"Knowing that children and adults use fundamentally different strategies helps educators and parents to be more patient. A child is not "dumb" when he cannot immediately identify the main thing — his brain just works in its natural mode for his age," the expert emphasized, adding that in the future the results of the study may form the basis of models for predicting the academic success of schoolchildren.

Ekaterina Mytskikh, a Russian language teacher at Online School No. 1, pointed out on January 26 the frequent mistakes of schoolchildren at the final interview. According to the expert, the first part of the interview includes an expressive reading of the text and its retelling with the obligatory inclusion of a quote. Common mistakes here are haste, inattention to the specified accents, distortion of words and loss of narrative logic.

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