1-144 - Executive Functions in Flux: Contextualising our Approaches for the Real World

Session Type: Paper Symposium

Integrative Statement

Children’s executive functions (EFs) represent children’s abilities to regulate their attention and behaviors. EFs have been longitudinally linked to children’s academic achievement. Contextual factors, such as the quality of teacher-child interactions, are associated with EF development. However, children’s EFs have primarily been measured in lab-like situations that may lack ecological validity. This symposium aims to extend previous work by considering individual differences in children’s EF in a variety of contexts, using a variety of measures. Collectively our work suggests that EFs are context-dependent in early and middle childhood, uncovering systematic variation as a function of measurement approaches, contextual, and social factors.

Paper 1 shows that EFs measured by lab-based assessments, teacher reports, and classroom observations do not strongly overlap in low-income kindergarteners. The findings suggest that different measures of EFs may capture different aspects of children’s EFs. Paper 2 describes a new tablet-based test battery of EFs and related socioemotional measures, validated with 4- to 12-year-olds. The tablet assessments will be open source and support large-scale data collection in schools. Paper 3 compares observations of 4- to 6-year-olds’ regulation skills across different classroom activities (e.g. child-led or teacher-directed). They demonstrate that self-regulation skills are only moderately stable within children across activities, suggesting that EF-related behaviors are context-dependent. Paper 4 highlights the importance of peer effects and social context of EF in middle childhood using a group-based EF assessment. Findings show that having classmates’ with higher average EFs and more variability in EFs are linked to individual students’ EF growth.

Sub Unit

• Cognitive Processes

Chairs

• Janina Eberhart, University of Cambridge

• Sara Baker, University of Cambridge

Individual Presentations

• Do Young Children’s Executive Functions Vary by Context and Measurement Approach? - Presenting Author: Janina Eberhart, University of Cambridge; Non-Presenting Author: Hayley Gains, University of Cambridge; Non-Presenting Author: Sara Baker, University of Cambridge

• Assessment of Motivation, Effort, and Self-regulation (AMES): A Novel Tablet Computer Assessment Battery - Presenting Author: Michael Sulik, Stanford University; Non-Presenting Author: Jelena Obradovic, Stanford University

• Variation in Young Children’s Self-regulation Skills Across Early Childhood Classroom Contexts - Presenting Author: Andrew Koepp, The University of Texas at Austin; Non-Presenting Author: Dana McCoy, Harvard Graduate School of Education; Non-Presenting Author: Stephanie Jones, Harvard Graduate School of Education; Non-Presenting Author: Elena Bodrova, Tools of the Mind; Non-Presenting Author: Deborah Leong, Tools of the Mind; Non-Presenting Author: Abigail Hemenway, Harvard Graduate School of Education

• Peers Matter: Links between Classmates’ and Individual Students’ Executive Functions in Elementary School - Presenting Author: Jenna E. Finch, University of Nebraska-Lincoln; Non-Presenting Author: Elisa B Garcia, SRI International; Non-Presenting Author: Michael Sulik, Stanford University; Non-Presenting Author: Jelena Obradovic, Stanford University