2025-26 IBSC Action Research Program
Foundations for Learning: Facilitating Boys’ Executive Function and Self-Regulation in the Classroom
Thank you to everyone who applied for the 2025-26 cohort of action researchers. Applications closed November 1. IBSC will contact all individuals who submitted an application with a status update by Friday, December 6, 2024.
“The single greatest predictor of academic success is executive function. It even trumps IQ.” (John Medina)
A strong suite of research highlights the important role played by strong executive function and self-regulation skills in assisting students of all ages and abilities to optimize learning and social outcomes (see Diamond & Ling, 2016). For several decades such research focused heavily on strategies to support students with specific learning disabilities. More recently research interest in the educational value of executive functioning and self-regulation for all students has been energized by the increasing recognition of neurodiverse students (Cook, 2024), the potential distractions to learning created through technology use (Duckworth et al., 2019; Kay et al., 2017), and the negative impact of COVID-19 pandemic-induced interrupted teaching and learning (Education Resources, 2024; Lavigne-Cervan et al., 2021). For boys Lavigne-Cervan et al. highlight specific post-pandemic issues associated with planning and organizing and the ability to self-regulate emotions, manage time, solve problems, be motivated, adapt to different circumstances, and inhibit inappropriate behavior.
Executive function (EF) is an umbrella term for the set of three interrelated cognitive capacities or skills essential for effective goal-directed behavior (Harvard University, 2024): working memory (the ability to hold and manipulate information over short periods), cognitive flexibility (the ability to shift between mental states, rule sets, or tasks), and inhibitory or self-control (the ability to suppress impulses and distractions to maintain focus on a task).
The notion of self-regulation has strong touch points with executive function. Parveen et al. (2023) note that “neither being a mental capacity nor a performance dexterity, self-regulation is the self-directed procedure through which learners translate their psychological capacities into task-related skills” (p. 388). In practical terms self-regulated learning is the process through which students set learning goals and work toward those goals by manipulating their learning environment in terms of regulating their thinking, motivation, and behavior (Zumbrunn et al., 2011).
While the relationship between executive function and self-regulation is complex, for the purpose of the 2025-26 IBSC Action Research topic, we operate under the premise that executive function skills are intertwined with, and made visible through, an individual’s emotional, cognitive, and behavioral self-regulation (Australian Council of Educational Research, 2021; McLelland et al., 2007).
Throughout childhood and adolescence, executive function and the ability to self-regulate behavior develop progressively with age as the prefrontal cortex—the region of the brain associated with executive function—undergoes significant maturation (Best & Miller, 2010). Along with age-related changes in executive function, neurobiological research also indicates sex-based differences in brain development that have implications for behavioral and cognitive performance in male youth (Kaczkurkin et al., 2019; Tomasi and Volkow, 2023).
Executive function and self-regulation also develop through experience, making the facilitation of executive skills and self-regulation crucial in the teaching and learning environment (Dawson and Guare, 2018). Interventions aimed at enhancing executive function skills and self-regulation can lead to substantial improvements in academic and social outcomes (Diamond and Ling, 2016). “Students need to practice executive functioning skills just like they need to practice phonetic skills, math facts, and reading comprehension skills. Therefore, teachers have a responsibility and, more important, an opportunity, to cultivate these skills” (Ayers and Glauber, 2022, para. 5).
The opportunity and imperative for facilitating executive-function skills and self-regulation exist across all grades and at all levels of boys’ learning in areas such as planning, organization, time management, working memory, metacognition, response inhibition, emotional control, sustained attention, task initiation, flexibility, and goal-directed persistence (Dawson & Guare, 2018). Strategies implemented as a research action to enhance boys’ performance in these areas include, but are not limited to, establishing teaching/ learning routines, modifying assessment and feedback procedures, changing the physical or social learning environment, addressing home-school collaboration, and implementing mindfulness activities.
While the potential to develop executive skills and self-regulation extends beyond the classroom, the 2025-26 IBSC Action Research Program focuses on exploring strategies to foster boys’ executive functioning and self-regulation in relation to the delivery of a school’s academic curriculum. Researchers work with 10 - 25 students in their schools as they conduct their projects.