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ABSTRACT Children’s self-regulation abilities are key predictors of educational success and other life outcomes such as income and health. However, self-regulation is not a school subject,
and knowledge about how to generate lasting improvements in self-regulation and academic achievements with easily scalable, low-cost interventions is still limited. Here we report the
results of a randomized controlled field study that integrates a short self-regulation teaching unit based on the concept of mental contrasting with implementation intentions into the school
curriculum of first graders. We demonstrate that the treatment increases children’s skills in terms of impulse control and self-regulation while also generating lasting improvements in
academic skills such as reading and monitoring careless mistakes. Moreover, it has a substantial effect on children’s long-term school career by increasing the likelihood of enroling in an
advanced secondary school track three years later. Thus, self-regulation teaching can be integrated into the regular school curriculum at low cost, is easily scalable, and can substantially
improve important abilities and children’s educational career path. Access through your institution Buy or subscribe This is a preview of subscription content, access via your institution
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subscriptions * Read our FAQs * Contact customer support SIMILAR CONTENT BEING VIEWED BY OTHERS ADAPTION AND IMPLEMENTATION OF THE ENGAGE PROGRAMME WITHIN THE EARLY CHILDHOOD CURRICULUM
Article Open access 14 December 2022 MINDSET AND PERCEIVED PARENTAL SUPPORT OF AUTONOMY SAFEGUARD ADOLESCENTS’ AUTONOMOUS MOTIVATION DURING COVID-19 HOME-BASED LEARNING Article Open access
28 January 2023 A QUASI-EXPERIMENTAL CONTROLLED STUDY OF A SCHOOL-BASED MENTAL HEALTH PROGRAMME TO IMPROVE THE SELF-ESTEEM OF PRIMARY SCHOOL CHILDREN Article Open access 27 April 2022 DATA
AVAILABILITY The data for this publication have been collected in a project that has compiled a large set (and combination) of children’s abilities, preferences and family (sociodemographic)
characteristics (Supplementary Sections 1.3 and 1.4) and thus represents highly sensitive data. This dataset cannot be made available for data protection reasons. In addition, parental
consent for data usage only covers strictly scientific purposes. The restriction to scientific purposes was also necessary to comply with data protection requirements, and use of the data
for strictly scientific purposes cannot be guaranteed if the dataset is made (publicly) available. Not all the data collected in this project are analysed for this publication; see
Supplementary Section 1.4 for details. Researchers interested in replicating our findings can get access to the dataset after filling out a research agreement with us. We confirm that in the
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educational authorities as well as all parents and children for their participation in the project. We are also thankful to countless excellent research assistants who made this field study
possible. Moreover, we thank M. Wolf for support and provision of code in conducting the multiple testing correction. We are grateful for generous financial support that allowed us to
conduct this project: All authors acknowledge support by the Jacobs Foundation (project 2013-1078-00). E.F. acknowledges support from the University Research Priority Program of the
University of Zurich on Equality of Opportunity (project U-302-01-01). D.S. acknowledges support by the university research priority programme ‘Interdisciplinary Public Policy’ at Johannes
Gutenberg University Mainz (project FI 2/2014-2016). E.M.B. acknowledges support by the German Research Foundation (BE 5436/1-1). H.H. acknowledges support by the German Academic Scholarship
Foundation and the Research Council of Norway (FAIR, project 262675). The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the
manuscript. AUTHOR INFORMATION Author notes * These authors contributed equally: Daniel Schunk, Eva M. Berger, Henning Hermes, Kirsten Winkel. AUTHORS AND AFFILIATIONS * Department of Law
and Economics, Johannes Gutenberg University of Mainz, Mainz, Germany Daniel Schunk * German Council of Economic Experts, Wiesbaden, Germany Eva M. Berger * DICE (Düsseldorf Institute for
Competition Economics), Heinrich Heine University of Düsseldorf, Düsseldorf, Germany Henning Hermes * School of Social Sciences, University of Applied Sciences Saarbrücken, Saarbrücken,
Germany Kirsten Winkel * Department of Economics, University of Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland Ernst Fehr Authors * Daniel Schunk View author publications You can also search for this author
inPubMed Google Scholar * Eva M. Berger View author publications You can also search for this author inPubMed Google Scholar * Henning Hermes View author publications You can also search for
this author inPubMed Google Scholar * Kirsten Winkel View author publications You can also search for this author inPubMed Google Scholar * Ernst Fehr View author publications You can also
search for this author inPubMed Google Scholar CONTRIBUTIONS E.F. and D.S. initiated and supervised the study throughout all stages. E.F., D.S., E.M.B., and K.W. conceptualized the study and
all authors developed the field design. E.M.B., H.H., D.S., and K.W. developed intervention materials and outcome measures for the study. H.H. conducted the field experiment with input from
E.M.B., E.F., D.S., and K.W.; E.M.B. and H.H. performed the data analysis with input from E.F., D.S., and K.W.; all authors were involved in the interpretation of the results and all
authors wrote the paper. CORRESPONDING AUTHOR Correspondence to Daniel Schunk. ETHICS DECLARATIONS COMPETING INTERESTS The authors declare no competing interests. PEER REVIEW PEER REVIEW
INFORMATION _Nature Human Behaviour_ thanks Angela Duckworth, Dieuwer Ten Braak and the other, anonymous, reviewer(s) for their contribution to the peer review of this work. ADDITIONAL
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agreement and applicable law. Reprints and permissions ABOUT THIS ARTICLE CITE THIS ARTICLE Schunk, D., Berger, E.M., Hermes, H. _et al._ Teaching self-regulation. _Nat Hum Behav_ 6,
1680–1690 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41562-022-01449-w Download citation * Received: 19 October 2021 * Accepted: 22 August 2022 * Published: 13 October 2022 * Issue Date: December 2022
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