Children cannot avoid daydreaming but it may affect learning, study shows

The study at Queen’s University Belfast is the first which looks at the impact of mind wandering on learning.

A new study has shown that children cannot avoid daydreaming in the classroom (Danny Lawson/PA) (PA Archive)

It is impossible for children to avoid daydreaming or “mind wandering” in the classroom, a new study has found.

But the research from Queen’s University in Belfast has found that daydreaming could be seriously affecting young people’s ability to learn.

The paper, published in the Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, is the first which looks at the impact of mind wandering on learning.

Researchers played a story to 97 children aged 6-11 and asked them a question every two minutes to check if they were paying attention.

Our research has found that children, like adults, are unable to fully concentrate all the time

Dr Agnieszka Graham, Queen’s University

They discovered that the children were “mind wandering” a quarter of the time and they couldn’t help it.

The study found that the frequency of mind wandering didn’t change with age but that it had a detrimental impact on learning as children who mind wandered the most remembered less about the story.

Dr Agnieszka Graham, lecturer in Applied Developmental Psychology at Queen’s, said: “In school, often children can get in trouble for mind wandering, it is sometimes viewed as a sign of disrespect or misbehaviour if they are not paying attention.

“However, our research has found that children, like adults, are unable to fully concentrate all the time; it’s likely that their minds will wander for a substantial proportion of a typical school day.

“Our findings indicate that further exploring the causes and consequences of mind wandering in these early years at school could provide a solid foundation for developing interventions to help children detect when their minds strayed from the task at hand and refocus their attention.

“The more we can learn about mind wandering in the classroom, the better we can design our teaching strategies and educational spaces to optimise learning and engagement.”