As you read this article, your mind is engaged in an amazing feat of self-control.

You may be drawing your attention away from the chatter of other people talking around you and resisting the temptation to check your social media. If it is a weekday, you may be muting a feeling of frustration at your journey to work this morning. At the same time, you may be blocking out any number of lingering emotions and thoughts. All of this is necessary for you to absorb the words on the page and follow my argument.

Pupils face very similar challenges in the classroom - and their ability to maintain their focus can have huge consequences for their academic success. Anything that weakens this skill will impair their learning, while anything that improves their focus will help them to excel.

Focus in the classroom

Given the huge importance in education and beyond, brain scientists have been working hard to understand the origins of these abilities. Their research has helped to explain the reasons that some people seem to have more disciplined minds than others, and the ways that our mental focus might be changing thanks to new technologies.

They are also discovering ways that parents and teachers can help young people to override their impulses, empowering them to overcome the many tempting distractions that could prevent them from reaching their potential.

Before we get to all that, first we need to pindown some terminology.

Executive function and self-regulation

Scientists tend to use the terms “executive functions” or “self-regulation” to describe the suite of cognitive processes that we might refer to as “focus”.

Our executive functions include the ability to inhibit unwanted thoughts and feelings, screen out distractions, juggle different pieces of information in our minds at the same time and forgo instant gratification for a later reward.

“The executive function skills are involved in the deliberate or intentional control of thoughts, actions and feelings,” explains Stephanie Carlson, a professor at the University of Minnesota’s Institute of Child Development. “It’s the opposite of when we’re on autopilot.”

Scientists have many ways of measuring executive functions.

The Stroop Test

You can ask people to hear and then recite a string of numbers, for instance, which measures “working memory span”, an ability that is essential for keeping up with a complex task.

The Stroop Test, meanwhile, involves a list of colour words appearing in different colours. The word red, for example, may appear yellow, while the word blue may appear brown. The test-taker must read out the colour of the letters while ignoring the word that is written, with their speed and accuracy revealing their capacity to inhibit irrelevant information - an important element of “selective attention”.

You can measure delayed gratification, meanwhile, by offering the chance to indulge in an immediate reward - such as a tasty treat or a small monetary prize - or wait for a larger reward later, and see which option the person chooses.

Many of these tests are easily adaptable for very young children. In a modified version of the Stroop test, for example, young participants may see various cartoon images of animals - some of which depict a kind of chimera with the body of one creature and the head of another. The children have to name the body of the animal while ignoring the head - a task that is harder than it sounds.

Biological control of focus

The brain’s prefrontal cortex (PFC), which lies directly behind the eyes and forehead, masterminds these operations. Although each skill is distinct and associated with different networks within the PFC, they often overlap.

Someone who is good at inhibiting distracting information may also be better at holding the details of a complex problem in their minds, for example, while being able to suppress unwanted thoughts could help you to stop thinking about the immediate temptations that might draw you away from your goal.

There are multiple routes through which refined executive functions can lead to better grades. They allow a child or adolescent to listen to the teacher’s words rather than getting lost in a daydream, and help them to keep persevering with their schoolwork even when they feel frustrated or bored.

Enhanced emotional control can prevent them from erupting with anger at the slightest provocation and it keeps them sitting at their desk when they could be playing video games.

An ability to direct the focus of our thoughts may even be essential for the basic understanding of new concepts. Consider a child learning about the classification of animals such as whales - which, at least superficially, look a lot like a fish.

To learn that a whale is, in fact, a mammal, the child needs to prevent their previous assumptions about these different groups from conflicting with the new information.

Linking executive function to attainment

Carlson has found that children vary in their capacity to do this. “Kids with stronger executive function skills are better able to learn that fact and remember it in a quiz later on,” says Carlson.

The fundamental importance of these skills for pupil’s progress throughout their academic career should not be underestimated. In multiple studies, measures of executive functions have proven to be one of the best predictors of their academic success.

The statistics are often arresting. One study by Professor Megan McClelland at Oregon State University, for example, found that a child with a greater capacity to hold their attention at the age of 4 was 49 per cent more likely to finish college by age 25.

Genetics versus environment

Measures of executive function should not be confused with intelligence, however, which represents the brain’s overall ability to think and reason abstractly. A child with a high IQ may have poorer executive skills, and their overall performance will suffer. Conversely, a child with a lower IQ may have greater focus and persistence, and they could flourish academically as a consequence.

Like intelligence, the development of our executive functions is influenced by our genes, meaning that you inherit some of your focus and persistence from your parents, but a child’s abilities can also be traced to their upbringing.

Psychologists have been particularly interested in the role of “autonomy-supportive parenting”, in which a caregiver provides just enough help for a young child to finish a challenging task, while still allowing the child to exercise their mind.

Completing a jigsaw puzzle, for example, is a good exercise in executive function for young children, since they must focus their attention on building one relevant section (a barn, say) without being distracted by the irrelevant parts of the picture (the horse or the field).

If the child feels overwhelmed by all the options available, the parent could help the child to sort the pieces into piles representing the different sections - without taking over entirely. This not only trains their executive function during the task at hand, but also creates a sense of agency and self-efficacy that might encourage them to practice the same skills in the future, says Carlson.

“Once they can own their behaviour, then it feels like have a choice of whether to control the self or not control the self and follow through on that,” she adds.

Role of technology

Given the role of a child’s environment and upbringing in their development, it’s natural to question whether new technologies are influencing the growth of their executive function.

You may observe a tween or teen quickly switching between apps on a phone or tablet, and worry whether they will ever be able to keep their focus on a single task in the real world. How can the slow-coming reward of learning and expressing new ideas ever compete with an avalanche of “likes” on Instagram?

There is some evidence that the mere presence of a phone can act as a short-term distraction. In one experiment, university students were asked to conduct a couple of fiddly exercises that required intense concentration. They had to read 20 rows of 50 single-digit numbers and delete any two consecutive digits that added up to three. Twenty-three of the 47 students were asked to take their phone out and place it on the desk - making its presence far more salient to them - and their performance suffered as a result.

I expect that most of us can empathise; I know that I often find it harder to focus on my work if I am waiting for a message or social media notifications.

Whether or not these technological developments have produced a lasting change in younger generations’ executive functions, however, is a matter of considerable debate. A few studies have found that people who report higher social media use are also more impulsive and distractible - but others have failed to find a relationship.

“The findings are mixed,” says Jason Chein, a professor of psychology and neuroscience at Temple University in Pennsylvania.

Attention problems

One huge question concerns the direction of causality. We simply don’t know if greater phone use reduces people’s focus and increases their impulsivity, or whether poor attentional control leads people to use their phones more, rather than engaging in other activities. This makes it very hard to draw any firm conclusions.

A recent review led by Matthias Liebherr at the University of Duisburg-Essen concluded that evidence to date of any change in cognition as a direct result of smartphone use is “rather limited”.

A slim body of work suggests that some executive functions may have even improved across the generations. Working with a team of researchers across the US, Carlson recently examined data measuring delayed gratification of children in the 1960s, 1980s and 2000s.

The children in the 2000s were willing to wait longer to receive a bigger reward than the children from the 20th century. She suspects that a combination of factors may explain this rise, including the greater attendance of preschool education. “Kids are getting more practice in waiting their turn, sharing with others and regulating themselves,” she said.

What can schools do about pupil focus?

We may need to wait many years to determine, definitively, whether there are any long-term changes in people’s executive function, for better or worse. In the meantime, scientists have been investigating whether certain psychological techniques can encourage better self-regulation in the classroom and beyond - with some promising results.

Mindfulness training appears to help both children and adults to strengthen their executive function skills, for example.

Many existing educational activities allow pupils to practice their focus and perseverance - it is one of the key benefits of school attendance - and the latest psychological science can offer some specific guidelines on the ways to maximise the benefits.

“We can say with some confidence now that there are a set of principles and best practices that appear to be supportive of executive function development, or at least do no harm,” says Carlson. “It’s best when it’s integrated with the learning itself.”

Providing greater autonomy in classroom exercises can be a good first step.

“Giving the pupils just enough information or hints so that they can reach the conclusion or solve the problem on their own,” she says. This enables the pupil to experience “small wins” that can build a sense of agency and self-efficacy that can encourage them to stay focused on challenging activities in the future.

Simply raising awareness of the potential for distraction to disrupt concentration may also be key, since many people may be unaware of the time they are wasting.

Self-regulation and mindfulness

According to a report from Harvard University’s Center on the Developing Child, it may be useful to teach pupils to “self-monitor” and to periodically question whether they are doing the things they have planned in advance.

“Monitoring in this way can identify counter-productive habitual and impulsive actions and maintain focused attention and conscious control,” the authors write.

For younger children, Carlson is interested in using imaginative play to teach mental discipline. Consider a phenomenon known as the “Batman effect”. Working with Rachel White, an associate professor of psychology at Hamilton College in New York State, Carlson asked groups of 3- and 5-year-old children to play a card game that demanded high levels of focus and flexible thinking to follow the rules, which changed with each round.

Some children were told to reflect on their own thoughts and feelings. “I want you to ask yourself: ‘Where do I think this card should go?’’’ they were told by the researchers. Others were encouraged to role play as a fictional character like Batman. “In this game, I want you to ask yourself: ‘Where does Batman think this card should go?’”

The Batman Test

Quite amazingly, the small shift in thinking produced a significant increase in the 5-year-olds’ performance. The researchers first published the results in 2015 and they have since replicated the findings in other contexts.

They asked 6-year-olds to play a boring and repetitive video game, for instance, which involved pressing a space bar every time they saw a picture of cheese on the screen. The children were free to go and play with an iPad at any time, but they were told that “it would be helpful if you worked hard on this for as long as you could”.

Those taking the role of Batman, Dora the Explorer or Tangled tended to take those instructions seriously and maintain their focus for longer.

It may be possible to incorporate this into lessons with subject-specific examples. “You could pose a question to pupils by asking: ‘What would Einstein say?’” says Carlson. This kind of strategy might just nudge younger pupils to practise skills that will soon become second nature.

Mindset theory and attention

Whatever the age of the pupils, staff might consider the way they talk about skills, with evidence that our executive functions can be influenced by our mindset. Emphasising the fact that our capacity to regulate our thoughts and feelings can improve with time, and explaining that a sense of frustration or fatigue is often a sign of intellectual growth, can encourage people to gain more self-control.

It may be worth questioning whether you model these skills yourself. Children and adolescents tend to copy the behaviours they see in others, and hearing about the ways you have avoided distractions, resisted temptations and remained committed to a particular challenge could help to prime the right mindset.

Troubles with attention and perseverance are by no means limited to under-18s, after all. And by strengthening your own focus and self-control, you may just help your pupils to develop theirs.

David Robson is an award-winning science writer. His latest book The Laws of Connection: 13 Social Strategies That Will Transform Your Life (Canongate) is out now

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