Executive functioning: a comparison of the Tower of London(DX) and the D-KEFS Tower Test

This study compared the Delis-Kaplan Executive Function System (D-KEFS) Tower Test to the Tower of London (TOL)(DX) in assessing executive functioning (EF) during a psycho-educational assessment by examining students' performances on both tests. Forty-two university students were administered both tests in a counterbalanced order. Findings indicate that students did not perform significantly differently on the D-KEFS Tower Test than on the TOL(DX), but that the tests only shared 22% of their variance. Although the moderate correlation found between overall achievement scores indicates that the D-KEFS Tower Test assesses some similar EF abilities as the TOL(DX), the different problem spaces between these tests may be tapping into different constructs and may account for the non-shared variance.