Background

ADHD (attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder) is a common neurodevelopmental disorder, affecting around 5-7% of children worldwide. It manifests through persistent patterns of inattention, hyperactivity and/or impulsivity, which can significantly impact children’s learning abilities at school. Typically, ADHD symptoms are treated with medication or behavioral therapies. The Focus Watch is specifically designed to provide innovative support for increasing self-managed focus during individual school work or homework.

Additionally, this study aims to explore how the Focus Watch may also benefit neurotypical children struggling to maintain their focus in today's highly attention-seeking environments. Our study therefore investigates whether the Focus Watch can not only help children with ADHD, but all students.

Goals

• Improving self-regulated attention during individual work at school : The Focus Watch is designed to offer self-regulative support through real-time feedback interventions, thereby improving academic performance by increasing self-maintained focus.
• Motivating autonomous work and homework : The Focus Watch is designed to increase children's willingness and capacity to work independently by providing different targeted motivational elements.
• Reducing constant monitoring from adults during individual work : The Focus Watch hopes to reduce the need for constant monitoring and reminding to get back to work from educators or parents and thus promote children's self-confidence.

Method

In order to investigate the effectiveness of the Focus Watch, a study is being carried out in classes from the end of primary to the start of secondary school for data collection and analysis. Three school classes with a total of around 40 children are expected to participate in the study (taking place between October and December 2024). The study follows a within-subject design in which each child takes part in three sessions of approximately 45 minutes each:

• Baseline measurement: The children work without the Focus Watch to establish a starting point.
• Two intervention appointments: The children wear the Focus Watch ; the app is active on one date and inactive on the other. The order of active and inactive app use is determined randomly in order to control for possible influences.  

Each session is made of two typical in-class individual learning exercises, which will serve as basis for data analysis and testing of the influence of the Focus Watch on individual school performance. The structure of each session is structured as follow:

Math exercises (20 minutes): The children work on typical math problems.

Break (5 minutes): A short break is planned to regenerate the children’s focus.

Free writing exercise (20 minutes): The children write a free text which hopes to give further details on the impact of the Focus Watch during sustained individual school tasks.

The structure and comprehensive approach also hope to provide additional measures to help evaluate the potential benefits of the Focus Watch on children's attention span and writing behavior in a school context.

Benefits / Expected results

We expect that the use of the Focus Watch will significantly improve children's school performance, particularly in subjects or exercises that require prolonged concentration. Children who show more difficulty in maintaining focus for long periods of time should be the ones to benefit the most from such a targeted support. The Focus Watch hopes not only to promote children's self-regulated focus during individual work, but also to reduce their dependence on external reminding from teachers or educators. In the long term, the Focus Watch should help to promote the children's autonomy and motivation by allowing them to cope better with the challenges they face during individual work and sustainably improve their academic performance.

Project organization

• Co-Project management
  Prof. Dr. Frank Wieber
  Dr. Samuel Wehrli
• Project team
  Dominique Truninger
  Julian Amacker
  Lydie Araujo
  Daniel Rüffer (advisory)
• Project duration
  2024 - 2025