The Monkey game: A computerized verbal working memory task for self-reliant administration in primary school children

Area of Science:

• Cognitive Psychology
• Educational Psychology
• Developmental Psychology

Background:

• Working memory is crucial for academic success in children.
• Existing assessment methods can be time-consuming or require direct supervision.
• Online, self-reliant tasks offer a scalable alternative for assessing cognitive abilities.

Purpose of the Study:

• To evaluate the psychometric properties of the Monkey game, an online verbal working memory task.
• To determine the reliability and validity of the Monkey game for primary school children aged 6-12.
• To investigate the predictive relationship between verbal working memory and academic achievement.

Main Methods:

• Two studies involving a total of 5,343 primary school children (aged 6-12).
• Administration of the Monkey game (verbal working memory), Lion game (visual-spatial working memory), and Raven's Standard Progressive Matrices.
• Collection of reading comprehension and math achievement scores; multilevel modeling and regression analyses were employed.

Main Results:

• The Monkey game demonstrated excellent internal consistency and good concurrent validity with other working memory measures.
• Performance on the Monkey game predicted reading comprehension and math achievement, independent of intelligence.
• Significant age-related differences and classroom effects were observed in task performance.

Conclusions:

• The Monkey game is a reliable and suitable tool for the online, self-reliant assessment of verbal working memory in children.
• The findings support the use of the Monkey game for monitoring cognitive development and academic potential.
• Online assessments can effectively capture individual differences in working memory and their impact on learning outcomes.