Moving Forward in the Study of Temperament and Early Education Outcomes

This book furthers understanding of how child temperament is linked to educational outcomes through mediating and moderating factors.

As the importance of socio-emotional development for educational outcomes is increasingly recognized, understanding the influence that children’s temperament―which includes their emotional reactivity and regulation of emotions, cognitions, and behaviors―can have on educational factors, such as school readiness and academic achievement, is crucial. First, the chapters in this book examine pathways connecting temperament with educational outcomes; for example, one study reports that toddler negative affect predicted executive functioning, which then predicted achievement at age six. The second way that chapters in this book examine links between temperament and education is by identifying factors that make associations between temperament and educational outcomes more salient; for example, findings from one study show that shyness and negative emotion were more strongly associated with lower academic achievement only when children received fewer than nine hours of sleep each night, highlighting the importance of sleep.

By examining pathways through which temperament exerts effects on educational outcomes (i.e., mediators), or factors that modify associations between temperament and educational outcomes (i.e., moderators), the potential for interventions aimed at improving early educational outcomes can be fully realized.

This book was originally published as a special issue of Early Education and Development.

Cynthia L. Smith is an Associate Professor and Director of Graduate Studies in Human Development and Family Science at Virginia Tech, USA, where she leads the Children’s Emotions Lab.

David J. Bridgett is an Associate Professor of Clinical Psychology at Northern Illinois University, USA, where he directs the Emotion Regulation and Temperament Laboratory.