Cognitive training promotes academic success: An analysis of focused meditative practices on student quiz performance

Cognitive training promotes academic success: An analysis of focused meditative practices on student quiz performance Jared T. Ramsburg (jramsb2@uic.edu) Robert J. Youmans (robert.youmans@csun.edu) Psychology Department, 376 Sierra Hall California State University, Northridge 18111 Nordhoff Street Northridge, CA 91330-8255 Abstract settings where self-regulation may be necessary for success. The cognitive skills required for successful academic performance includes self-regulatory functioning, an ability to enact conscious control over thoughts, feelings, and actions. The current studies examined the effects of brief periods of meditation on the academic performance of students at California State University, Northridge. Participants from four different psychology classes (three lower division and one upper division class) randomly received either brief meditation training or rest, followed by a traditional class lecture that ended with a quiz on that same lecture material. Results from the three lower-division classes all indicated that meditation improved quiz performance, but quiz scores in the upper-division class were unchanged following meditation. Our findings show that meditation may be an effective method of improving academic performance. Limitations of the studies and directions for future research are discussed. Cognitive evidence for the benefits of cognitive training via meditation Keywords: learning; cognitive training; attention; meditation. Introduction One reason that students may struggle in school is because excellence in academic performance requires a high degree of self-regulatory functioning, the ability to enact conscious control over thoughts, feelings, and actions toward the attainment of a goal (Zimmerman, 2000). Self-regulation is a mental resource that is susceptible to depletion (Muraven & Baumeister, 2000), and that is important for optimal performance in vigilance tasks (e.g., Smit, Eling, & Coenen, 2004), tasks that required the central executor (Baddley, 2003), and perhaps, in situations where a more heavily practiced or heuristic behavior is suboptimal and therefore should be avoided (e.g., Luchins, 1942; Youmans, 2011; Youmans & Ohlsson, 2008). Successful academic performance requires some of the same behaviors that have been linked with self-regulatory functioning. Students often struggle to remain vigilant to lectures, contemplate complex concepts, or adapt to new educational challenges. The present paper reviews literature on cognitive training via meditation, and then reports the results of four experimental studies that examined whether meditation would improve students’ performance in the classroom. Based on the results of these studies, we argue that meditation and other forms of cognitive training may benefit students in educational Researchers have reported that cognitive training, meditation or other conscious attempts to regulate physical and mental function, can promote self-regulatory functioning, improve attention, raise awareness, enhance decision-making, and increase memory retention (Brown, Ryan, & Creswell, 2007; Chan & Woollacott, 2007; Lutz, Slagter, Rawlings, Francis, Greischar et al., 2009; Kozhevnikov, Louchakova, Josipovic, & Motes, 2009; Srinivasan & Baijal, 2007; van Leeuwen, Muller, & Melloni, 2009). In one such example, an extensive 3-month cognitive training retreat where participants meditated for 10-12 hours a day showed reduced variability in attentional processing and behavioral response to variability on a dichotic listening task compared to participants in a novice meditation group (Lutz et al., 2009). In another example, Ly and Spezio (2009) found via fMRI that meditation might improve decision-making by influencing neural circuits in an enduring manner for recruitment during the self- regulation of social cognitive processes. In a third example, Tang, Ma, Wang, Fan, Feng, et al. (2007) utilized an experimental procedure whereby participants were randomly assigned to either engage in a cognitive training exercise called integrative body-mind training (IBMT) or perform relaxation training. The experiment consisted of 20- minutes of training a day across five days. Results revealed that those in the IBMT showed greater improvement on the Attention Network Test (ANT), a computer application designed to measure the efficiency of attentional networks (see Fan, McCandliss, Sommer, Raz, & Posner, 2002). Tang et al., found that participants improved on measures of executive attention, which involves both monitoring and resolving conflict amongst thoughts, feelings, and responses. Less is known about the way in which self-regulatory processes affect learning, but we postulate that improvements in attention and memory due to cognitive training might transfer to a classroom where students need to attend to, encode, and then finally retrieve and apply