Differences in skills and behaviour between preschool groups of high and low educational performance

The aim of this study has been to analyze the relationship between psychological variables and school performance in preschool children. A collection of cognitive and behavioural variables were selected, that according to the most current bibliography are related to student learning, with the goal of identifying the factors that appear to influence educational performance in childhood. The final goal would be to try to prevent future performance problems by means of identifying early these variables in the children that present low performance. The sample is composed of 47 children: 23 children with high performance and 24 with low performance. The instruments used were the Kauffman Brief Intelligence Test, the EHPAP (Spanish version of ACFS de Lidz y Jepsen, 2003) and a questionnaire about metacognition. The results showed significant differences between both groups in the profile of skills, in behavioral variables, and in the use of metacognitive strategies. However, both groups present a similar learning potential.