The Relationship between Mindfulness and Academic Achievement in Middle School Students

Abstract

The field of mindfulness has grown significantly in terms of interest, research, and practice. However, as mindfulness-related research regarding the adult population has significantly increased, there is limited mindfulness-focused research as it relates to youth. Additionally, research is needed to identify whether measures of mindfulness relate to children’s academic achievement. Given that a great deal of the existing research related to mindfulness is based on intervention studies, it is important to recognize the importance of correlational data in order to determine potential relationships between variables. Therefore, the current study evaluated scores from two psychometrically-sound measures of trait mindfulness for youth (i.e., the Child and Adolescent Mindfulness Measure, the Mindful Attention Awareness Scale-Children) and New York State standardized English language arts (ELA) and mathematic academic scores. Participants were 161 sixth, seventh, and eighth grade students from a public school in upstate New York. Results supported internal consistency reliability and concurrent validity for both the CAMM and MAAS-C. Further, a significant and positive relationship was found between the MAAS-C and mathematic scaled scores and ELA level scores, although the CAMM was not significantly correlated with any of the academic measures. Lastly, the sample was analyzed by grade level and a significant relationship was found between the MAAS-C and ELA and math achievement among sixth grade students. These findings indicate that the MAAS-C may be the better measure when evaluating mindfulness among sixth grade students. Further research should investigate the predictive power of the MAAS-C and academic achievement.