Partial agreement between task and BRIEF-P-based EF measures depends on school socioeconomic status

Area of Science:

• Developmental psychology
• Cognitive science
• Educational psychology

Background:

• Executive functions (EF) are crucial for goal-directed behavior, encompassing skills like working memory, flexibility, and inhibitory control.
• Two primary measurement traditions exist: behavioral ratings via questionnaires and performance on laboratory tasks.
• The correspondence between these measurement types and the influence of school context remain underexplored.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate the relationship between EF tasks and questionnaire ratings (e.g., BRIEF-P).
• To examine the moderating role of school socioeconomic status (SES) on the agreement between EF measures.
• To determine if EF task performance predicts behavioral ratings and vice versa, considering school context.

Main Methods:

• Utilized multilevel models to analyze data from over 220 children (mean age 5.6 years).
• Compared performance on EF tasks with teacher-reported behavioral ratings (e.g., BRIEF-P).
• Analyzed the influence of school SES on the associations between different EF measures.

Main Results:

• Inhibitory control, planning, and global executive functioning showed associations with BRIEF-P ratings across all school SES levels.
• Flexibility measures demonstrated no consistent association with BRIEF-P ratings, irrespective of school SES.
• Working memory: questionnaire ratings predicted task performance only in high SES schools, while task performance predicted behaviors across all schools.

Conclusions:

• Measures of executive functions assessed via tasks and questionnaires show only partial overlap.
• School SES is a significant factor influencing the relationship between working memory measures and behavioral ratings.
• Findings suggest careful consideration of school SES when interpreting teacher-reported executive function behaviors.