Bridging Naturalistic and Laboratory Measures of Self-Regulation: The Development and Validation of Challenge Tasks.

Abstract

Self-regulation (or “executive function”, including inhibition, working memory and attention) has drawn a great deal of attention recently as a result of its role in predicting academic achievement and social competence. However, age appropriate and ecologically valid measurements of the concept are seriously lacking. Most existing assessments measure the concept either exclusively in the laboratory setting or directly in the classroom through observation of natural behaviors. In contrast, the current study introduces a series of field-experimental measures (called, the “challenge tasks”) to evoke self-regulation behaviors in the classroom. To validate these measures, 139 demographically diverse children were recruited from the suburban Midwestern area. Results showed that the challenge tasks, 1) have good inter-coder and test-retest reliability, 2) relate to existing experimental tasks as demonstrated by correlation analysis and confirmatory factor analysis, and 3) predict math and reading achievement. Further, the inhibition and working memory challenge tasks added additional variance over and above in predicting both reading and math achievement. The implications, limitations and future direction of this work are discussed.