Banca de DEFESA: EGON RALF SOUZA VIDAL

Uma banca de DEFESA de MESTRADO foi cadastrada pelo programa.
DISCENTE : EGON RALF SOUZA VIDAL
DATA : 12/12/2019
HORA: 14:00
LOCAL: Sala 106 da Superintendência de Tecnologia da Informação (STI)
TÍTULO:

Effects of meditation on attention, executive functions, and school performance of children

PALAVRAS-CHAVES:

 meditation; mindfulness; cognitive stimulation; school performance; selective attention; executive functions. 

PÁGINAS: 172
GRANDE ÁREA: Ciências Humanas
ÁREA: Psicologia
RESUMO:

Brazil has been suffering from a learning crisis that is increasingly expressed in the performance of its students. Data from the International Student Assessment Program (PISA) and the Functional Literacy Indicator (INAF) denote this problem. In this context, intervention and stimulation strategies have been emerging, applied in the school environment or not, in order to promote improvements in skills associated with students' academic/school performance. Some of these competencies – such as cognitive functions and processes – have been identified in strong association with student achievement. This is the case with attention and executive functions, which are highly recruited mental skills in the educational process as well as in everyday tasks. Meditation, in turn, has been the subject of many investigations and has been validated as to its effectiveness on various aspects, problems and needs present in the educational context, such as the stimulation of learning-related skills, the stimulation of socio-emotional development, among others. Based on these assumptions, this dissertation aimed to investigate the effects of meditation on attention, executive functions and school performance of children, students of elementary school of a municipal school in the interior of Bahia. In this sense, three articles were developed during this dissertation: two reviews and one empirical study. Article I was an integrative literature review, based on the PRISMA protocol, which sought to conceptualize academic/school performance and to identify the factors associated with it. Three databases were consulted – ERIC, PubMed and PlosOne – and in all 140 articles were reviewed. 121 factors were identified in association with the academic/school performance of students of all educational levels. These factors were organized according to their dimensions of origin, namely: biological, psychologicalbehavioral, socio-environmental and spiritual. Academic/school performance was conceptualized as the objective level of cumulative efficiency and effectiveness of exercise and expression (or its absence) of a series of overlapping student performances from the biological, psychological-behavioral, socio-environmental and spiritual dimensions. In addition, a theoretical-conceptual model has been proposed to explain the interaction of the concept with the factors. Article II aimed to identify and characterize the effects of meditation on factors associated with academic/school performance. Thus, a systematic literature review based on the PRISMA method for reviews was performed. The PubMed database was consulted and, in total, seven empirical articles were reviewed. Ten factors associated with students' academic/school performance were identified. Meditation was effective on all identified factors and, in some cases, had an effect on academic/school performance. Finally, article III aimed to investigate the effects of meditation on children's attention, executive functions, and school performance. Thus, a quasi-experimental, pre-test and post-test study with comparison group was conducted, involving 44 children with average age of 10.84 years (SD= 1.07) from Elementary School, randomly organized in two groups: control (n= 22) and expeirmental (n= 22). The results indicated that there were no significant differences of the investigated variables between the evaluated groups, except for the executive functions. However, there was a difference for all variables in the intra-group comparison. It was concluded that meditation was effective for stimulating attention, executive functions and improving students' academic performance.

MEMBROS DA BANCA:
Externo à Instituição - CHRISSIE FERREIRA DE CARVALHO - UFSC
Interno - 1560690 - JOSE NEANDER SILVA ABREU
Presidente - 2322731 - THATIANA HELENA DE LIMA