Search

This study quantified the possible learning losses in reading and math skills among a sample of Finnish Grade 3 children (n = 198) who spent 8 weeks in distance learning during the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic in spring 2020. We compared their reading and math skill development trajectories across Grades 1, 2, and 4 to a pre-COVID sample (N = 378). We also examined if gender, parental education, maternal homework involvement, and child’s task-avoidant behavior predict children’s academic skills at Grade 4 differently in the pre-COVID sample compared with the COVID sample. Children’s reading and math skills were tested, mothers reported their education and homework involvement, and teachers rated children’s task-avoidant behavior. The results showed, on average, lower reading skills in the COVID sample than in the pre-COVID sample but there were no differences in math skills. Although the COVID sample had lower levels in reading, their developmental trajectories in reading and math skills were not different from the pre-COVID sample before the pandemic in Grades 1 and 2. From Grade 2 to 4, however, the development was slower in reading fluency and comprehension in the COVID sample, but not in math. The predictors of change from Grade 2 to 4 in reading and math skills were not different in the samples. The results showed that the development of reading skills in particular may have been affected by the COVID-19 pandemic.

Theoretical models suggest that the emotion disgust or threat overestimates are important in the aetiology and maintenance of contamination-based obsessive–compulsive disorder. In the current study, both threat and disgust were manipulated and 115 non-clinical participants (mean age 20.46 years, 94 females) were randomly allocated to one of four conditions: high-disgust/low-threat (n = 29), high-disgust/high-threat (n = 29), low-disgust/low-threat (n = 27), and low-disgust/high-threat (n = 30). Participants completed a hierarchical Behavioural Avoidance Task (BAT). Those in the high-threat and high-disgust conditions completed less BAT steps and showed more latency to begin each step than those in the low-threat and low-disgust conditions. A significant interaction effect was observed for the high-disgust/high-threat condition as significantly more task avoidance was found. However, handwashing duration was not significantly different between the high and low-disgust conditions or the high and low-threat conditions. The overall low mean washing duration of 30 s possibly due to the testing conditions and/or the ethnic heterogeneity of the sample may account for these results. There were also no significant differences in the level of anxiety for participants in the high-threat compared with the low-threat conditions. It is possible that anxiety remained relatively low across conditions as a result of the graduated BAT. Future research and theoretical and clinical implications are discussed.

In this invited review, we argue for the need to determine whether appetitive and aversive behaviors, be they goal-directed or habitual, share overlapping neural circuitry. To motivate our argument, we first summarize what is currently known about the neural circuits governing aversive and appetitive behaviors by focusing first on the three hypothesized phases of avoidance learning, and then on goal-directed and habitual reward seeking. We then provide several reasons to believe that the neural circuits of appetitive and aversive instrumental behaviors are not completely overlapping. We next discuss an experimental strategy to determine the extent of overlap based on a new computational framework that improves the identification of goal-directed and habitual actions regardless of valence. Finally, we discuss recent work in obsessive-compulsive disorder that uses this computational framework to determine whether patients perform appetitive and aversive versions of the same task using the same behavioral strategies and neural circuits.

Self-efficacious children are expected to be more task-focused in challenging achievement situations and consequently have better chances of overcoming learning difficulties than children who have lower self-efficacy. The present study investigates this presumption with Finnish-speaking first graders struggling with reading acquisition ( N = 285). The development of the children’s reading fluency, self-efficacy, and task avoidance was followed from the middle of Grade 1 to the end of Grade 2, and a 6-week mobile game-based intervention was administered to those who exhibited the greatest risk for reading disabilities (≤ 5th percentile). Exploratory structural equation modeling was used to test the theoretical model. The results suggest that higher self-efficacy in the middle of Grade 1 predicted lower task avoidance and higher reading fluency at the end of Grade 1, but no support for the mediating role of task avoidance was found. The intervention benefited both self-efficacy and reading fluency.

The present study examined the academic antecedents of declining peer social status. Participants included 545 (311 boys, 234 girls) Finnish students followed from the 1st through the 4th grade (ages 6–8 at outset). Each year, teachers completed assessments of academic task avoidance and students completed standardized measures of reading and math achievement. Acceptance was assayed through peer nominations. Supporting the hypothesized model, the results indicated that a lack of interest and motivation at the outset of primary school leads to a downward spiral of academic difficulties and diminished peer acceptance. Specifically, academic task avoidance in 1st and 2nd grade anticipated declining math and reading achievement one year later, which in turn, anticipated decreases in peer acceptance the following year. The findings held after controlling for factors known to contribute to school and peer difficulties, such as friendlessness, school readiness, and emotional and behavioural problems. peerReviewed

This study examined patterns of mothers' homework involvement (n = 680 in Grade 6 and 665 in Grade 7) and changes in them during 12-year-old Finnish adolescents' (n = 848; 391 boys) transition to lower secondary school. Moreover, the extent to which adolescents' motivational behavior and prior academic achievement predicted these patterns was examined. The latent transition analyses identified four relatively stable latent patterns of maternal homework involvement in Grades 6 and 7: averagely involved, psychologically controlling and intrusive, noninvolved, and intrusive monitoring and helping. The higher task avoidance and the poorer achievement adolescents showed, the more likely their mothers were to utilize a psychologically controlling and intrusive pattern, or an intrusive monitoring and helping pattern. Overall, these results suggest that some mothers may benefit from understanding of how to best support struggling and task-avoidant adolescents during the transition from primary to lower secondary school. peerReviewed

This study examined three aspects of maternal homework involvement (i.e., the quantity, quality, and source of initiative) and their direct and indirect associations with adolescents’ task-avoidant behavior in homework situations and academic achievement. The sample consisted of Finnish mothers and their adolescents who were transitioning from primary to lower secondary school. Mothers rated the quantity of their homework involvement (i.e., monitoring and help), quality of their homework involvement (i.e., autonomy support and psychological control), and source of initiative (i.e., mother- vs. adolescent-initiated monitoring and help) at the beginning of Grade 6. They also reported on adolescents’ task avoidance in homework situations at the beginning of Grade 7. Information on adolescents’ academic achievement in the spring terms of Grades 5 and 7 was obtained from school registers. The results showed that high maternal psychological control and mother-initiated monitoring were associated with poorer subsequent academic achievement directly and indirectly through higher levels of adolescent task avoidance. Moreover, poor prior academic achievement was associated with higher levels of subsequent task avoidance directly and indirectly through high maternal psychological control and mother-initiated monitoring. Overall, the results highlight the importance of bringing mothers’ knowledge and awareness to their self-initiated and controlling involvement practices and helping them to support adolescents’ learning and motivation in more optimal ways. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved) peerReviewed

PurposeThis study focuses on how young adults face the COVID-19 pandemic by investigating their personal concerns about mental well-being, career/studies and economic situation. The authors investigated how young adults' (aged 18–29) personal concerns differ from older people's concerns (aged 30–65) and which person- and context-related antecedents relate to personal concerns.Design/methodology/approachData of Finnish young adults aged 18–29 (n = 222), who participated in the “Corona Consumers” survey (N = 1,000) in April 2020, were analyzed by path analysis and compared to participants aged 30–65 by independent samples t-test.FindingsYoung adults were significantly more concerned about the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on their mental well-being, career/studies and economic situation than older people. Females were more concerned about their mental well-being than males. Among youth, lower life satisfaction was related to concerns about mental well-being, and lower satisfaction with financial situation was related to concerns about career/studies and economic situation. Young adults' predisposition to avoid difficult situations was related to more frequent concerns in all domains, whereas generalized trust and education were not.Research limitations/implicationsDue to cross-sectional data, causal COVID-19 interpretations should be made cautiously.Practical implicationsStrong youth policies are needed for youth empowerment, mental health and career advancement in the pandemic aftermath.Originality/valueThe study highlights the inequality of the effects of COVID-19: The pandemic has radically influenced young adults as they exhibit significant personal concerns in age-related life domains.

The purpose of the research was to analyze procrastination - a problem of time management that negatively affects the autonomy of people - in relation to leisure as a domain of everyday life. Specifically, the dynamics between leisure (activities and time invested - weekly frequency and duration of activity) and procrastination factors were studied. A sample of 185 university students (118 men and 67 women: M age = 20.77 years, SD age = 2.53) answered a procrastination scale - validated for the Spanish population - which refers to four factors of procrastination (dilatory behaviors, indecision, lack of punctuality, and lack of planning) and an adaptation of the Time Budget (TB) (a table where the participants were asked to specify "the three activities that you prefer to do when you are not studying or doing a paid job"). Results show that leisure activities are associated with factors of procrastination. As a matter of fact, the different factors of procrastination were related to specific types of leisure activities, depending on the weekly frequency of the activity or its duration. In this sense, there are cases in which the greater frequency of leisure activities (hobbies and computing, social life and entertainment) seems to contain - control, inhibit - procrastination (specifically, affecting its component of indecision) variations in the weekly frequency and duration of certain type of activities result in higher or lower scores on certain factors of procrastination. In sum, the time invested in leisure can protect from or inhibit delaying tasks - which implies enhancing the autonomy of people - a deduction that opens up new lines of research to identify optimal time investments for coping with procrastination.

In this 3-year longitudinal study, we examined the interplay of children’s motivational orientations, spontaneous focusing on numerosity (SFON) and number sequence and arithmetical skills from kindergarten (at age 6) to grade 1 (at age 7). We also examined the direct and indirect contributions of motivation and SFON to the acquisition of arithmetical skills from grades 1 to 2 (at age 8). The study involved 136 Finnish-speaking, typically developing children. Teacher ratings were used to assess the children’s motivational orientations (i.e., task orientation, task avoidance orientation and social dependence orientation) in kindergarten and grade 1. Number sequence skills and SFON were evaluated in kindergarten, and arithmetical skills were assessed in kindergarten, grade 1 and grade 2. A theoretical model of the relationships among the variables was proposed, and the associations were analysed using path analysis. The results showed that task orientation, social dependence orientation and task avoidance orientation were each unique predictors of later arithmetical achievement. Furthermore, together with arithmetical skills in grade 1 and counting abilities in kindergarten, they helped to predict arithmetical achievement in grade 2. Motivational orientations did not explain the significant contributions of SFON to later arithmetical skills. The study suggests that both motivational orientations and SFON require attention and scaffolding in educational contexts, such as assessment and teacher-child interaction from early on.

This international study compared motivational tendencies among pre-school children from Israel, Finland and the Netherlands. Teachers were asked to rate students’ behaviours during semi-structured...

International audience; Mentally demanding tasks feel effortful and are usually avoided. Furthermore, prolonged cognitive engagement leads to mental fatigue, consisting of subjective feeling of exhaustion and decline in performance. Despite the intuitive characterization of fatigue as an increase in subjective effort perception, the effect of fatigue on effort cost has never been tested experimentally. To this end, sixty participants in 2 separate experiments underwent a forced-choice working memory task following either a fatigue-inducing (i.e. cognitive task involving working memory, conflict and switch costs) or a control manipulation. We measured fatigue in terms of subjective feeling and performance decrement and assessed effort in terms of subjective perception and task avoidance. Subjects exhibited only weak avoidance of the working memory task, with stronger influence of reward than task difficulty on their decisions. In addition, we found that task avoidance did not systematically change following the fatigue manipulation but that variations in task avoidance correlated with fatigue-induced performance decline. The other measures of fatigue and effort were unrelated to each other. Our findings suggest that subjective fatigue may develop independently of task avoidance and suggest an "anticipatory regulation" model in which fatigue urges subjects to stop in anticipation of possible, future adverse consequences.

This study examined the role of temperament, prereading skills, and age at school entry in the development of Finnish children's task avoidance. Teachers rated the task-avoidant behavior of 198 participants in kindergarten and twice in Grades 2 and 3. Parents rated the children's temperament at age 3 and children's prereading skills were measured at age 5. The results showed that, on average, the level of children's task avoidance remained the same from kindergarten to Grade 2 fall, but decreased from Grade 2 fall to Grade 3 spring. A low task avoidance level was predicted by good prereading skills, high effortful control, and high negative affectivity. Low surgency predicted a decrease in task avoidance from kindergarten to Grade 2 fall, whereas high negative affectivity predicted a decrease from Grade 2 fall to Grade 3 spring. Finally, task avoidance of the oldest children in the classrooms decreased more from kindergarten to Grade 2 fall, whereas younger children's task avoidance decreased particularly from Grade 2 fall onward. peerReviewed

This longitudinal study investigated the associations among children’s externalizing problems, task-avoidant behavior, and academic performance in early school years. The participants were 586 children (43% girls, 57% boys). Data pertaining to externalizing problems (teacher ratings) and task-avoidant behaviors (mother and teacher ratings) were gathered, and the children were tested yearly on their academic performance in Grades 1–4. The results were similar for both genders. The analyses supported a mediation model: high externalizing problems in Grades 1 and 2 were linked with low academic performance in Grades 3 and 4 through increases in task-avoidant behavior in Grades 2 and 3. The results also provided evidence for a reversed mediator model: low academic performance in Grades 1 and 2 was associated with high externalizing problems in Grades 3 and 4 via high task avoidance in Grades 2 and 3. These findings emphasize the need to examine externalizing problems, task-avoidant behavior, and academic performance conjointly to understand their developmental dynamics in early school years.

This study is designed to investigate friend influence over mathematical reasoning in a sample of 374 children in 187 same-sex friend dyads (184 girls in 92 friendships; 190 boys in 95 friendships). Participants completed surveys that measured mathematical reasoning in the 3rd grade (approximately 9 years old) and one year later in the 4th grade (approximately 10 years old). Analyses designed for dyadic data (i.e., longitudinal Actor-Partner Interdependence Models) indicated that higher achieving friends influenced the mathematical reasoning of lower achieving friends, but not the reverse. Specifically, greater initial levels of mathematical reasoning among higher achieving partners in the 3rd grade predicted greater increases in mathematical reasoning from 3rd grade to 4th grade among lower achieving partners. These effects held after controlling for peer acceptance and rejection, task avoidance, interest in mathematics, maternal support for homework, parental education, length of the friendship, and friendship group norms on mathematical reasoning.

Mentally demanding tasks feel effortful and are usually avoided. Furthermore, prolonged cognitive engagement leads to mental fatigue, consisting of subjective feeling of exhaustion and decline in performance. Despite the intuitive characterization of fatigue as an increase in subjective effort perception, the effect of fatigue on effort cost has never been tested experimentally. To this end, sixty participants in 2 separate experiments underwent a forced-choice working memory task following either a fatigue-inducing (i.e. Stroop task) or a control manipulation. We measured subjective fatigue and effort as well as their objective behavioral signatures: performance decline and task avoidance, respectively. We found that fatigue-induced performance decline was correlated with task avoidance, while the feelings of fatigue and effort were unrelated to each other. Our findings highlight the discrepancy between subjective and objective manifestations of fatigue and effort, and provide valuable evidence feeding the ongoing theoretical debate on the nature of these constructs.

In my roles of educational consultant and teacher educator, I am often asked if a student is doing something like rocking because he has autism. Others ask if a student’s task avoidance is due to autism and share that they have been told by other professionals that children with autism are not intrinsically motivated. If we are going to change education for students with autism spectrum disorder, we must question teachers’ beliefs and the meanings they place on differences they see in these students. Likewise, we must be concerned with how these interpretations impact how students are educated (Baglieri et al. 2011; Cochran-Smith and Dudley-Marling 2012).

Corticotropin-releasing hormone (CRH) is involved in modification of synaptic transmission and affects spatial discrimination learning, i.e., affects the formation of memory in long-term aspect. Therefore, we have focused on CRH effect on short-term memory. We have used stress task avoidance (maze containing three zones: entrance, aversive, and neutral) and compared the behavior and short-term memory in wild-type mice and mice lacking CRH (CRH KO) experiencing one 120-min session of restraint stress. As control, non-stressed animals were used. As expected, the animals that experienced the stress situation tend to spend less time in the zone in which the restraint chamber was present. The animals spent more time in the neutral zone. There were significant differences in number of freezing bouts in the aversive and entrance zones in CRH KO animals. CRH KO control animals entered the neutral zone much more faster than WT control and spent more time immobile in the neutral zone than WT control. These data give evidence that lacking of CRH itself improves the ability of mice to escape away from potentially dangerous area (i.e., those in which the scent of stressed animal is present).

Past research suggests that indecisiveness and trait anxiety may both decrease the likelihood of performing risk-mitigating preparatory behaviors (e.g., preparing for natural hazards) and suggests two cognitive processes (perceived control and worrying) as potential mediators. However, no single study to date has examined the influence of these traits and processes together. Examining them simultaneously is necessary to gain an integrated understanding of their relationship with risk-mitigating behaviors. We therefore examined these traits and mediators in relation to wildfire preparedness in a two-wave field study among residents of wildfire-prone areas in Western Australia (total N = 223). Structural equation modeling results showed that indecisiveness uniquely predicted preparedness, with higher indecisiveness predicting lower preparedness. This relationship was fully mediated by perceived control over wildfire-related outcomes. Trait anxiety did not uniquely predict preparedness or perceived control, but it did uniquely predict worry, with higher trait anxiety predicting more worrying. Also, worry trended toward uniquely predicting preparedness, albeit in an unpredicted positive direction. This shows how the lack of performing risk-mitigating behaviors can result from distinct cognitive processes that are linked to distinct personality traits. It also highlights how simultaneous examination of multiple pathways to behavior creates a fuller understanding of its antecedents.

This study examined the cross-lagged associations between the quality of classroom interactions and children’s behaviors in achievement situations. The achievement behaviors in challenging test situations of 166 Finnish children from 70 classrooms were rated by trained testers in grades 1 and 2. The quality of classroom interactions in terms of emotional support, classroom organization, and instructional support were observed in 25 classrooms (out of 70) in grades 1 and 2. The results of multilevel modeling showed that classroom teachers’ low emotional support predicted children’s subsequent high passive avoidance, whereas high classroom organization and instructional support predicted children’s high social dependence. Furthermore, the more children showed active task avoidance, the more emotional and instructional support and classroom organization teachers showed later on in the classroom. The findings emphasize the importance of warm and supportive classroom interactions for children’s adaptive achievement behaviors. The results also suggest that teachers adapt their classroom interactions with respect to children’s active task avoidance.

This study investigated the effects of video self-modelling (VSM) on reducing task avoidance behaviours of four elementary-aged students with autism spectrum disorders. A multiple-probe design across participants showed that the performance of two of the four participants was positively changed immediately after the VSM interventions were implemented. The performance of one participant did not change positively until the original VSM was modified. The performance of another participant was not improved even after the modified VSM was implemented. In addition, improved attentiveness to the video did not necessarily lead to positive effects of the VSM interventions.