This research brief examines the data on holding back five-year-olds from starting kindergarten – a practice known as redshirting. Using national data from over three million kindergartners from NWEA’s MAP Growth K-2 assessment, this study explores redshirting trends between fall 2017 and 2025. It also follows a kindergarten cohort (2021-22) through the third grade, examining whether there were academic advantages for redshirted students.
Friday, April 3, 2026
Wednesday, April 1, 2026
Believing that practice makes perfect is most important for succeeding in schoo
A recent study from the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU) looks at how different forms of motivation are related to how pupils perform in upper secondary school.
“One of the clearest findings in the study is that believing you can improve through practice is the most consistent motivational factor when it comes to grades and experiencing a sense of mastery in academic subjects,” said Birger Olav Sætre.
It is not about being perfect or never facing challenges, but about having a basic understanding that skills can be developed through effort and practice.
Sætre is a research assistant in psychology at NTNU. He is also the general manager and chair of the board at Tenn Gnisten (Ignite the Spark), an organization that studies pupil well-being and how young people can thrive and improve at school. The new article is about to be published in Frontiers in Education.
Investigated four specific factors
Motivation consists of many different factors. In this study, the researchers focused on four specific aspects:
- Whether pupils believe they can improve through effort (growth mindset).
- How much faith they have in their own abilities (self-efficacy).
- How strongly they want to perform well and remain engaged over time (passion).
- How much they persevere when something is difficult (grit).
The researchers studied the links between these factors and well-being, perceived mastery, and grades in the subjects of Norwegian and physical education.
Believing that practice makes perfect is most important in the subjects of Norwegian and physical education
The clearest finding was that pupils who believe they can improve through effort also enjoy their subjects more and perform better at school.
“Having this attitude was important in the subjects of Norwegian and physical education, and was more strongly associated with several outcomes than the other motivational factors we measured,” explained Sætre.
Belief in one’s own abilities was especially important in physical education and was linked to both well-being and experiencing a sense of mastery in the subject.
“This makes sense, since this is a subject where pupils receive clear and immediate feedback on their skills and often draw on experiences from activities outside school,” said Sætre.
Other factors are less important
So, what about the other factors?
“Pupils who were ambitious and highly focused on performing well often excelled,” said Sætre.
However, this had less impact on the pupils’ outcomes once the other factors were taken into account.
“The same applied to perseverance. It helped somewhat, especially in terms of enjoyment of the subject of Norwegian, but was less important than we expected in a general school context. At the same time, these factors can play a greater role in activities that pupils have chosen themselves and are passionate about.”
Gender differences
The researchers also found differences between boys and girls.
“Boys reported having more grit and higher drive to perform, but this did not result in them achieving better grades,” said Sætre.
This shows that the pupils who appear most goal-oriented are not always the ones who perform best academically.
“Girls, however, felt more confident in Norwegian and achieved better grades in this subject,” added Sætre.
Facing challenges can be beneficial
Ultimately, it is about how pupils understand their own development and learning over time. You do not have to be constantly perfect. Facing challenges and making mistakes can be a natural part of learning and developing skills.
“Schools can therefore benefit greatly by helping pupils see that it is always possible to improve and understand that making mistakes is part of the learning process,” concluded Sætre.
Reference: Sætre, Birger Olav; Sigmundsson, Hermundur. The Motivational Predictors and Gender Differences of Academic Outcomes in Upper Secondary Education: Exploring the Role of Growth Mindset, Self-efficacy, Grit and Passion. Front. Educ., 30 January 2026. Sec. Psychology in Education. Volume 11 - 2026 | https://doi.org/10.3389/feduc.2026.1708978
Journal
Frontiers in Education
Tuesday, March 31, 2026
Screen time among children and adolescents has increased over three decades
First systematic review to track long-term trends across pre- and post-pandemic periods finds dramatic rise in screen use among children and adolescents.
Screen time among children and adolescents has increased significantly over the past three decades, with clear rise occurring after the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, according to a new systematic review conducted at the University of Turku, Finland.
The review analyzed 60 peer-reviewed studies published between 1991 and 2022 and is the first to comprehensively examine long-term trends in screen time use among individuals aged 0–19 years across both pre-pandemic and pandemic periods.
Postdoctoral Researcher Yuko Mori from the Research Centre for Child Psychiatry at the University of Turku, Finland, the shared lead author, tells that the nature of screen use has changed dramatically, shifting from traditional television to more interactive and personalized digital devices, such as mobile phones and video games. Earlier studies focused mainly on TV viewing, but from the mid-2010s onward, research began to include newer devices, such as smartphones and tablets.
“Interestingly, even during the pandemic, television viewing continued to decline,” says Mori.
School closures during the pandemic intensified screen dependence
Before the COVID-19 pandemic, research showed a mixed picture, as most studies indicated an increasing trend while others showed mixed results. The majority of studies conducted after the pandemic showed a dramatic increase in both total and leisure screen time among children and adolescents.
Across age groups, older children and adolescents generally reported higher screen time than younger children.
“This likely reflects developmental factors,” says shared lead author Sanju Silwal, Postdoctoral Researcher at the University of Turku. “Adolescence is a life stage where peer relationships, online social interaction, and romantic relationships become increasingly central.”
The increase in screen time was observed across socioeconomic groups, but it was more pronounced among children from higher socioeconomic backgrounds. The authors suggest this may reflect greater access to personal digital devices.
Guidance needed for healthy screen use
The sustained rise in screen exposure raises concerns regarding potential impacts on physical health, mental well-being, sleep, and development. Beyond time spent on digital devices, digital environments may expose young people to cyberbullying, inappropriate content, and unrealistic body ideals.
Several countries have introduced regulatory measures in response to growing concerns about youth digital media use. The authors emphasize that effective responses must be grounded in high-quality evidence.
Most research has focused on the duration of screen use rather than the quality, context, or content of digital activities. The authors call for future research to adopt a more nuanced and multidimensional approach, examining not only how much time children spend on screens but also what they are doing online and how it affects their well-being.
“Technology offers tremendous opportunities, but it also presents risks,” Silwal notes. “To ensure that children benefit from digital environments, we need continuous research, evidence-based policies, and coordinated efforts from families, schools, communities, and governments.”
This systematic review was funded by the INVEST Flagship programme of the Research Council of Finland and the European Research Council under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme.
Journal
Clinical Child Psychology and Psychiatry
Effects of academic pressure from parents
Academic pressure from parents is a familiar part of many adolescents' school lives. It is often assumed to simply make students feel "more stressed." But a new study published in the European Journal of Psychology of Education suggests a more nuanced picture: parental pressure may shape how students experience the costs of learning, and those costs do not all matter in the same way.
Surveying 616 Chinese seventh-grade students, the researchers found that stronger perceived parental academic pressure was associated with four distinct forms of motivational cost: effort cost, opportunity cost, psychological cost, and emotional cost. These dimensions were then linked in different ways to two key outcomes, school burnout and academic achievement.
The findings are especially relevant in early adolescence, when students are adjusting to the demands of middle school and parents often place growing emphasis on academic success. At this stage, external expectations can become intertwined with how students evaluate the effort, sacrifice, emotional strain, and self-worth implications involved in studying.
In a study published online on 24 March, 2026, researchers led by Dr. Yi Jiang examined the learning experiences of 616 Chinese seventh-grade students.
"Although parental expectations can support academic achievement, excessive pressure may be counterproductive," the research team explains. "It can shape how students perceive the costs of learning, and different types of cost may matter for different academic outcomes."
Importantly, these costs did not function in the same way:
- For school burnout, the most important mediators were emotional cost and opportunity cost. Students who felt more pressure from parents were more likely to report emotional strain and a sense that studying required sacrificing other valued parts of life, and these two costs were linked to greater burnout.
- For academic achievement, effort cost and emotional cost were associated with lower achievement, whereas psychological cost showed the opposite pattern and was positively associated with achievement. Although this may seem counterintuitive at first, it suggests that in high-pressure academic settings, concerns about self-worth and fear of failure may sometimes coexist with strong performance, especially among students who are highly invested in meeting expectations.
The study further suggests that the associations linking parental academic pressure and perceived cost to adolescents' burnout and achievement may be broadly similar for boys and girls, even though girls reported somewhat higher levels of some perceived costs.
"These findings highlight the need for context-sensitive interventions that directly address the specific motivational barriers students face," the authors note. "It may not be enough to target academic pressure in general. Interventions may be more effective when they focus on the particular types of cost students experience. This multidimensional view of cost is one of the study's central contributions."
Journal
European Journal of Psychology of Education
With history standards prone to politicization, 'minimalism' approach would benefit teachers
The practice of states revising standards for how their schools teach history is developing a storied and often contentious history of its own. A University of Kansas scholar has published new research arguing that history standards are prone to overt politicization and the best examples for how to handle history education are in states that practice “standards minimalism.”
Since the 1980s, an accountability movement in American education has seen standards drafted state by state for how schools should teach certain topics and which topics they should address. While those efforts may have begun and been argued for in good faith, the subject of history has proven difficult to standardize and worse, been prone to politicization.
“There is not much evidence that since the ‘80s these standards have improved history education. And there is a lot of evidence that they have made culture wars worse. They’ve also made things harder for teachers and schools,” said Stephen Jackson, assistant professor of educational leadership & policy studies at KU.
In his article “The Best History Standards Govern Least: The Case for Standards Minimalism,” published in The Journal of American History, Jackson traces how standards have evolved over the last several decades and how today states like Kansas and Maine provide the best examples for what history standards should be.
While arguments have been made that standards are unenforceable, research has shown that teachers rely on them for guidance on what topics to cover and how, especially those early in their careers or required to teach subjects they may not be experts in, demonstrating their influence in the classroom. However, politicians and special interest groups have increasingly developed standards that sideline expert opinion and offer polarizing and contentious versions of history in schools, according to Jackson.
“History is all about interpretation and showing multiple perspectives. That tends to get lost and flattened in these standards. Most people say we should have an open, honest conversation about history in school, but all too often what happens is that those in power want to insist their version becomes the accepted standard,” he said.
The result of such politically drafted standards and mandates is a long list of topics that must be covered, leaving little time to fully understand the significance of historical events, people and results in prescriptive memorization, Jackson wrote. In an era when less time is given in the school day to history and social studies, that takes away from time spent analyzing history, its lessons and what it says about how people and societies have evolved.
To avoid the dual problems of “the tyranny of coverage,” or racing to cover a long list of topics and politicization of standards, Jackson argues states should use “standards minimalism.” The author points to Kansas and Maine as two states who have standards employing such an approach.
Maine’s standards include helping each student become “a self-directed and lifelong learner” and “a responsible and involved citizen.” They also direct educators to include chronological eras and themes including “freedom and justice” and “conflict and compromise.”
Kansas’ standards contain only five simplistic standards, including “choices have consequences” and “individuals have rights and responsibilities.” The lack of specific content guidance is intentional, Jackson points out.
“In other words,” Jackson said, “Kansas and Maine focus on high-level and abstract concepts or guiding principles rather than specific historical content recommendations.”
By reducing state involvement in history education standards, minimalism appeals to the principle of local control of education, a pillar of American educational practice, Jackson wrote. Ideally, giving more agency to local school districts and trusting in the professionalism of teachers can lower the temperature of the culture wars.
“I think the great strength of what Kansas and Maine are doing is avoiding a long list of prescriptive mandates and giving support teachers need to do their jobs,” Jackson said. “That is a welcome counter to national trends that continue moving towards more controversial and overly detailed standards.”
Journal
Journal of American History
Bullying and peer victimization can trigger trauma symptoms in children,
Bullying and other forms of peer victimization can cause trauma symptoms in elementary school children, according to new research from the University of Florida.
The study, published in the Journal of Clinical Child & Adolescent Psychology, found that more than 40% of children who experienced peer victimization showed clinically significant trauma symptoms, suggesting these experiences can have profound psychological effects.
“Bullying is often viewed as a normal part of growing up, but our findings suggest that for many children these experiences can be genuinely harmful,” said John L. Cooley, Ph.D., the study’s lead author and assistant professor in UF’s College of Education.
The research followed 250 students in grades three through five at two elementary schools, examining their experiences with peer victimization and tracking trauma-related symptoms over the school year.
Peer victimization includes a range of experiences, such as being teased, excluded from groups, threatened, having rumors spread or being targeted online. Bullying is more severe and involves a power imbalance between the aggressor and victim.
“When people think about peer victimization and bullying, they often picture physical aggression like hitting or pushing,” Cooley said. “But these experiences can also involve teasing, exclusion, gossip, property destruction or cyber victimization.”
Researchers found that about 9 in 10 students experienced at least one instance of peer victimization during the early part of the school year. Children who experienced these events reported trauma symptoms across several areas, including avoidance, intrusive thoughts, negative emotions, heightened physical responses and changes in how they view themselves or others.
“Children may try to avoid thinking about what happened or withdraw from others,” Cooley said. “At the same time, they may have unwanted thoughts about those experiences, trouble sleeping or feel constantly on alert.”
The effects were not short-lived. The study found that the impact of peer victimization persisted more than six months later, suggesting these experiences can have lasting consequences for children’s mental health. The same pattern emerged for all forms of peer victimization.
Researchers were also surprised by how early children were targeted online. About one in four children in the study reported experiencing cyber victimization. “Often the aggression begins at school and then continues online when children go home,” Cooley said.
The study also found that many incidents go unnoticed by adults. While students reported high rates of victimization, teachers identified far fewer cases.
“There is often a lot happening that adults simply aren’t aware of,” Cooley said. “Some incidents occur outside of adult supervision, and others involve behaviors like exclusion or gossip that can be harder to detect.”
Because of this, researchers say it is important for parents and educators to ask children directly about their peer experiences.
“It’s critical that we talk with children about what they’re experiencing and take those reports seriously,” Cooley said.
Journal
Journal of Clinical Child & Adolescent Psychology
Monday, March 30, 2026
Supporting Student Engagement During Remote Learning
Three Randomized Controlled Trials in Chicago Public Schools
This paper presents the results of three field experiments testing interventions designed to increase engagement and improve learning during remote schooling. Since the COVID-19 pandemic, the use of remote learning when schooling is interrupted has become more common, prompting educators to ask: How can we better engage students during remote instruction? This is especially salient because much of what we know about student engagement is based on in-person schooling, not virtual instruction.
In the first experiment, personalized phone calls increased families’ likelihood of registering for a virtual summer schooling program in Chicago Public Schools, the pre-specified primary outcome.
In the second experiment, sending weekly text messages had no effect on students’ summer days absent and usage of Khan Academy, the primary outcomes; in analyses of secondary outcomes, the weekly text messages increased students’ likelihood of passing their summer math course.
In the third experiment, adding an instructional aide to supplement classroom teachers had no effect on the primary outcomes of summer days absent and usage of Khan Academy; in analyses of secondary outcomes, we find beneficial impacts in the following school year on students’ math grades and passing rates.
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