IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/intell/v90y2022ics0160289621000842.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The factor structure of executive function in childhood and adolescence

Author

Listed:
  • Laureys, Felien
  • De Waelle, Silke
  • Barendse, Maria T.
  • Lenoir, Matthieu
  • Deconinck, Frederik J.A.

Abstract

Executive functioning (EF) plays a major role in many domains of human behaviour, including self-regulation, academic achievement, and even sports expertise. While a significant proportion of cross-sectional research has focused on the developmental pathways of EF, the existing literature is fractionated due to a wide range of methodologies applied to narrow age ranges, impeding comparison across a broad range of age groups. The current study used a cross-sectional design to investigate the factor structure of EF within late childhood and adolescence. A total of 2166 Flemish children and adolescents completed seven tasks of the Cambridge Brain Sciences test battery. Based on the existing literature, a Confirmatory Factor Analysis was performed, which indicated that a unitary factor model provides the best fit for the youngest age group (7–12 years). For the adolescents (12–18 years), the factor structure consists of four different components, including working memory, shifting, inhibition and planning. With regard to differences between early (12–15 years) and late (15–18 years) adolescents, working memory, inhibition and planning show higher scores for the late adolescents, while there was no difference on shifting. The current study is one of the first to administer the same seven EF tests in a considerably large sample of children and adolescents, and as such contributes to the understanding of the developmental trends in EF. Future studies, especially with longitudinal designs, are encouraged to further increase the knowledge concerning the factor structure of EF, and the development of the different EF components.

Suggested Citation

  • Laureys, Felien & De Waelle, Silke & Barendse, Maria T. & Lenoir, Matthieu & Deconinck, Frederik J.A., 2022. "The factor structure of executive function in childhood and adolescence," Intelligence, Elsevier, vol. 90(C).
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:intell:v:90:y:2022:i:c:s0160289621000842
    DOI: 10.1016/j.intell.2021.101600
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0160289621000842
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.intell.2021.101600?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. William Meredith, 1993. "Measurement invariance, factor analysis and factorial invariance," Psychometrika, Springer;The Psychometric Society, vol. 58(4), pages 525-543, December.
    2. ,, 2002. "Problems And Solutions," Econometric Theory, Cambridge University Press, vol. 18(2), pages 541-545, April.
    3. ,, 2002. "Problems And Solutions," Econometric Theory, Cambridge University Press, vol. 18(4), pages 1007-1017, August.
    4. ,, 2002. "Problems And Solutions," Econometric Theory, Cambridge University Press, vol. 18(5), pages 1273-1289, October.
    5. ,, 2002. "Problems And Solutions," Econometric Theory, Cambridge University Press, vol. 18(3), pages 819-821, June.
    6. ,, 2002. "Problems And Solutions," Econometric Theory, Cambridge University Press, vol. 18(1), pages 193-194, February.
    7. ,, 2002. "Problems And Solutions," Econometric Theory, Cambridge University Press, vol. 18(6), pages 1461-1465, December.
    8. Fen Xu & Yan Han & Mark A Sabbagh & Tengfei Wang & Xuezhu Ren & Chunhua Li, 2013. "Developmental Differences in the Structure of Executive Function in Middle Childhood and Adolescence," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 8(10), pages 1-9, October.
    9. Rosseel, Yves, 2012. "lavaan: An R Package for Structural Equation Modeling," Journal of Statistical Software, Foundation for Open Access Statistics, vol. 48(i02).
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Fatima Wasif & Tara McAuley, 2024. "Exploring Close Relationships and Executive Functions as Unique and Joint Predictors of Adolescent Subjective Well-Being Across the Transition to High School," Journal of Happiness Studies, Springer, vol. 25(6), pages 1-21, August.
    2. Feraco, Tommaso & Cona, Giorgia, 2022. "Differentiation of general and specific abilities in intelligence. A bifactor study of age and gender differentiation in 8- to 19-year-olds," Intelligence, Elsevier, vol. 94(C).

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Cambier, Adrien & Chardy, Matthieu & Figueiredo, Rosa & Ouorou, Adam & Poss, Michael, 2022. "Optimizing subscriber migrations for a telecommunication operator in uncertain context," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 298(1), pages 308-321.
    2. Libura, Marek, 2007. "On the adjustment problem for linear programs," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 183(1), pages 125-134, November.
    3. Christophe Loussouarn & Carine Franc & Yann Videau & Julien Mousquès, 2021. "Can General Practitioners Be More Productive? The Impact of Teamwork and Cooperation with Nurses on GP Activities," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 30(3), pages 680-698, March.
    4. Tschakert, Petra, 2016. "Shifting Discourses of Vilification and the Taming of Unruly Mining Landscapes in Ghana," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 86(C), pages 123-132.
    5. Isabelle Boutron & Peter John & David J. Torgerson, 2010. "Reporting Methodological Items in Randomized Experiments in Political Science," The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, , vol. 628(1), pages 112-131, March.
    6. Ben Slimane, Faten & Padilla Angulo, Laura, 2019. "Strategic change and corporate governance: Evidence from the stock exchange industry," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 103(C), pages 206-218.
    7. Weijun Xie & Yanfeng Ouyang & Sze Chun Wong, 2016. "Reliable Location-Routing Design Under Probabilistic Facility Disruptions," Transportation Science, INFORMS, vol. 50(3), pages 1128-1138, August.
    8. Natalia Nikolaevna Natocheeva* & Yuri Alexandrovich Rovensky & Yuri Yuryevich Rusanov & Tatiana Viktorovna Belyanchikova & Anna Anatolevna Staurskaya, 2018. "Optimizing Variability of Approaches to Regulatory Financing of Higher Education Services," The Journal of Social Sciences Research, Academic Research Publishing Group, pages 221-227:3.
    9. Sahar Validi & Arijit Bhattacharya & P. J. Byrne, 2020. "Sustainable distribution system design: a two-phase DoE-guided meta-heuristic solution approach for a three-echelon bi-objective AHP-integrated location-routing model," Annals of Operations Research, Springer, vol. 290(1), pages 191-222, July.
    10. Andy Hall, 2005. "Capacity development for agricultural biotechnology in developing countries: an innovation systems view of what it is and how to develop it," Journal of International Development, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 17(5), pages 611-630.
    11. Athinoula A. Kosti & Simon Colreavy-Donnelly & Fabio Caraffini & Zacharias A. Anastassi, 2020. "Efficient Computation of the Nonlinear Schrödinger Equation with Time-Dependent Coefficients," Mathematics, MDPI, vol. 8(3), pages 1-12, March.
    12. Bruno Frey, 2005. "Problems with Publishing: Existing State and Solutions," European Journal of Law and Economics, Springer, vol. 19(2), pages 173-190, April.
    13. Lan, Heng-you, 2021. "Approximation-solvability of population biology systems based on p-Laplacian elliptic inequalities with demicontinuous strongly pseudo-contractive operators," Chaos, Solitons & Fractals, Elsevier, vol. 150(C).
    14. Shelly Jeffcott & Nick Pidgeon & Andrew Weyman & John Walls, 2006. "Risk, Trust, and Safety Culture in U.K. Train Operating Companies," Risk Analysis, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 26(5), pages 1105-1121, October.
    15. Rainer Niemann, 2004. "Asymmetric Taxation and Cross-Border Investment Decisions," CESifo Working Paper Series 1219, CESifo.
    16. Zhenghua Gu & Xiaomeng Cao & Guoliang Liu & Weizhen Lu, 2014. "Optimizing Operation Rules of Sluices in River Networks Based on Knowledge-driven and Data-driven Mechanism," Water Resources Management: An International Journal, Published for the European Water Resources Association (EWRA), Springer;European Water Resources Association (EWRA), vol. 28(11), pages 3455-3469, September.
    17. Ian N. Gregory & Paul S. Ell, 2005. "Breaking the boundaries: geographical approaches to integrating 200 years of the census," Journal of the Royal Statistical Society Series A, Royal Statistical Society, vol. 168(2), pages 419-437, March.
    18. Alexis Comber & Paul Harris, 2018. "Geographically weighted elastic net logistic regression," Journal of Geographical Systems, Springer, vol. 20(4), pages 317-341, October.
    19. Fuamenya A. Francis, 2018. "Impact of Management Practices in Industries in the Industrial ¨C Free ¨C Trade Zones in Douala, Littoral Region of Cameroon: ¡°Challenges and Prospects¡±," Business and Management Research, Business and Management Research, Sciedu Press, vol. 7(3), pages 10-26, September.
    20. K. Padmanathan & N. Kamalakannan & P. Sanjeevikumar & F. Blaabjerg & J. B. Holm-Nielsen & G. Uma & R. Arul & R. Rajesh & A. Srinivasan & J. Baskaran, 2019. "Conceptual Framework of Antecedents to Trends on Permanent Magnet Synchronous Generators for Wind Energy Conversion Systems," Energies, MDPI, vol. 12(13), pages 1-39, July.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:intell:v:90:y:2022:i:c:s0160289621000842. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.journals.elsevier.com/intelligence .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.