Attentional Efficiency: a Comparative Study on Argentine Students Attending Schools from Different Socio-Cultural Contexts

ISON, MIRTA; GRECO, CAROLINA; KORZENIOWSKI, CELINA; MORELATO, GABRIELA

Electronic Journal of Research in Educational Psychology,

Colegio Oficial de Psicología de Andalucía Oriental.

Lugar: Andalucía; Año: 2015 vol. 13 p. 343 - 368

1696-2095

Attentional Efficiency (AE) is defined as the accuracy with which a child discriminates, from a group of similar stimuli, those which are identical to a model, within a certain time period (Ison & Carrada, 2011). Various factors may be associated with a higher or lower AE, among which are parents' educational and socio-cultural conditions. The goals of this study were: 1) to evaluate attentional efficiency in Argentine school children attending state- and privately-managed primary schools; 2) to compare attentional efficiency in connection with the educational level of the students' mothers and the type of school (state or privately managed). Two groups of 10-to-13-year-old students were formed: 74 from state schools (Mean 11.26; S.D. 0.93; 53% boys and 47% girls) and 67 students (Mean 11.49; S.D. 1.05; 54% boys and 46% girls) from a privately-managed school. The results revealed lower attentional efficiency in school children attending state schools than in those attending a privately-run institution. The students whose mothers had attained a university level of education showed a significantly higher attentional performance, in contrast with those students whose mothers had only attended primary school. This study concurs with research showing the influence of socio-cultural and educational variables on children's attentional performance, contributing evidence on the need to adjust educational practices and cognitive interventions to boost children's academic achievements.