Irina N. Bondarenko

Background. The role of conscious self-regulation in determining students’ psychological well-being and academic performance is considered in the context of the fundamental problem of the regularities of young adolescents’ development.

Objective. To reveal the role of meta-resources of conscious self-regulation in determining young adolescents' psychological well-being and academic performance.

Design. Sample: 500 students in 4th- to 6th grade (10-12) in general schools, 149 of whom participated in a three-year longitudinal study. The Self-Regulation Profile of Learning Activity and the Well-Being Manifestation scales were used.

Results. Conscious self-regulation and academic performance increase significantly in fifth grade and decrease in sixth grade. On the contrary, psychological well-being is characterized by a systemic positive dynamic. A typological analysis identified the levels of psychological well-being of students growing, stable, and declining during the transition period. It was found that the general level of conscious self-regulation made a significant positive contribution and is a universal resource for students' psychological well-being and academic performance. Special regulatory resources for academic performance are described, depending on the trajectory of changes in psychological well-being. Increased well-being is determined by the regulatory competencies of Planning and Evaluation of results and its stability by Planning, Modelling, Flexibility, and Responsibility. The general level of self-regulation, regulatory competencies, Planning, Programming and Responsibility mediate in the relationship between student psychological well-being and academic performance. A longitudinal study found that self-regulation has a long-term positive effect on student psychological well-being and academic performance.

Conclusion. Conscious self-regulation is a meta-resource that makes a significant contribution to both the psychological well-being and academic performance. Mediator and prognostic effects of self-regulation on these properties create a psychological basis for practical work.

Background. Mastering a first language at school is mediated by the regulatory abilities of pupils. An open question is how the executive functions implementing conscious self-regulation are related to language competences.

Objective. To study the relationship between basic executive functions (switching, inhibition, working memory updating, and error correction) and language competences.

Design. A sample of 104 Russian middle school children (aged 13–15 years) performed three cognitive tasks assessing basic executive functions and two tasks assessing language competences in the areas of punctuation, spelling, morphology, syntax, semantics, vocabulary, and style.

Results. Inhibitionwas mostly related to punctuation, spelling, and morphology competences and was most important in the first competences task, requiring the recognition of errors. Switchingwas mostly related to the competences in syntax, reflecting the importance of switching attention between alternative syntactic structures. Working memory updatingwas the most important executive function related to language competences, with a heavy focus on higher-level lexical, semantic, and stylistic competences. The role of updating was especially important in the second competences task, which required generation of well-formed sentences. Error correctionwas mostly relevant for the recognition of language errors.

Conclusion. While inhibition and switching affect aspects of constructing the surface form of a sentence, working memory is preferentially related to the construction of semantically appropriate sentences. Error monitoring and correction are generally related to the recognition of language errors. Conscious self-regulation and its cognitive mechanisms are systematically related to the development of native language competences in middle school.

Using the results of two empirical studies (with different samples and academic subjects), our research was aimed at discovering the significant role of conscious self-regulation, intelligence, and cognitive features in predicting optimal academic achievement. The sample consisted of 406 students (aged 14-16) in the 8th to 11th grades of the Russian formal education system. Conscious self-regulation together with intelligence and cognitive abilities was determined to be a significant predictor of academic success. The Study 1 results revealed that the general level of self-regulation of learning activity and certain regulatory features were significant predictors of different types of mathematical achievements: academic grades, scores on exams, mathematical fluency, as well as solving logical mathematical problems and equations. The present study is the first to show the mediating role of self-regulation in relation to intelligence, cognitive features, and academic success. Study 2 found evidence that conscious self-regulation and intelligence can predict academic achievement in the humanities, mathematics, and natural sciences... At the same time, this determination has its peculiarities in particular variables of intelligence and certain self-regulation processes depending on the substantive characteristics of the academic subjects. Regression models of academic success in the humanities identified verbal intelligence associated with vocabulary as highly significant and a definitive requirement for success in these subjects. Study 1 and Study 2 showed that the only significant predictors of success in algebra and geometry were quantitative- relations intelligence and spatial intelligence. The implications of these findings for investigating predictors of academic achievement are discussed.

Background. The theoretical basis of the study was the resource approach (Morosanova 2014, 2017), in which the conscious self-regulation of learning activity is understood as a meta-resource, of students allowing them to consciously and independently set learning goals and manage their achievement. This approach made it possible to create models of direct and mediate contributions of self-regulation and school engagement not only to the academic performance, but also to other motivational and personal competencies.

Objective. Our study is aimed to investigate the impact of conscious self-regulation, school engagement, motivation, and personality on academic achievement, while taking into account the effects of mediation.

Design. A quantitative research design was applied, using data collected from more than 1524 students from the 5^th to 11^th grades in Russian schools and applying Structural Equation Modelling (SEM).

Results. The results allowed us to construct a statistical model of predictors of students' academic achievement. The model was verified on the total sample, as well as samples differing in gender and age. The results show that conscious self-regulation is central to non-cognitive predictors of academic achievement. For the first time, a study has revealed and described the reciprocal relationship between self-regulation, academic motivation, school engagement, and academic performance. The resulting model demonstrates that behavioral and cognitive engagement make a significant contribution to academic performance, while emotional and social engagement do not find significant links with it, although they determine other areas of school life.

Conclusion. Our paper investigates the nature and strength of the effects of major non-cognitive predictors of academic achievement. The study results substantiated the resource role of conscious self-regulation not only for students’ academic performance, but also for their academic motivation, school engagement, and attitude toward learning. The predictor model of academic achievement we developed will provide a foundation for combining existing heterogeneous concepts into a single integrated model and clarify the contradictions between them.

Background. Recently, research on psychological well-being and its dynamics and predictors in adolescence, has gained special attention, due to the importance of well-being for mental and physical health, as well as for success in different activities. Self-regulation (SR) is considered a significant resource for maintaining psychological and school-related subjective well-being.

Objective. The purpose of our study was to identify the role of conscious SR in maintaining pupils' satisfaction with school life, and to assess the contribution of conscious SR to the development of psychological well-being in adolescence.

Design. Two three-year longitudinal studies were carried out on samples of young adolescents in Russian schools (N = 148; N = 132; 10-13 years). The studies utilized methods for assessing conscious SR, psychological well-being (PWB), and school-related subjective well-being (SWB), the latter being the cognitive component of life satisfaction.

Results. Our research revealed differences in the dynamics of PWB and SWB levels in adolescents during their transition from primary to basic secondary school. It also identified the specifics of longitudinal relationships between conscious SR, PWB, and SWB in adolescence. We showed that there was a reciprocal relationship between them. However, the most significant cross-longitudinal effects were established between SR and school-related SWB. These effects changed over time: at the beginning, well-being acted as a significant factor of self-regulation, while later self-regulation acted as a significant resource for maintaining adolescent well-being in the subsequent years.

Conclusion. School-related SWB is characterized by the most pronounced trajectory of change, while PWB is characterized by greater stability and insignificant growth. Our three-year longitudinal study demonstrated that the link between self-regulation and well-being is consistently reproduced. Conscious self-regulation is a significant resource for both the psychological and school subjective well-being of adolescents.