Using confirmatory factor analysis to understand executive control in preschool children: I. Latent structure
Using confirmatory factor analysis to understand executive control in preschool children: I. Latent structure
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DOI：
10.1037/0012-1649.44.2.575
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发表时间：
2008-03-01
影响因子：
4
通讯作者：
Charak, David
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Wiebe, Sandra A.;Espy, Kimberly Andrews;Charak, David
尽管最近已经开发了许多任务来研究学龄前儿童的执行控制，但这些任务的执行绩效背后的结构还很少被理解。特别是，尚不清楚执行控制是由多种可分离的认知能力(如抑制和工作记忆)组成，还是本质上是单一的。243名2.3岁至6岁的正常发育儿童完成了一系列与年龄相适应的执行控制任务。运用验证性因素分析对多种执行控制模型进行了实证比较。单因素通用模型足以解释这些数据。此外，单一模型的适合性在按社会经济地位或性别划分的儿童亚组中是不变的。女孩表现出比男孩更高的潜在执行控制水平，社会经济地位高和低的儿童在水平上没有差异。在典型的学龄前儿童发展中，被概念化为工作记忆和抑制控制指标的任务实际上测量了一种单一的认知能力，尽管任务特征之间存在表面上的差异。
Although many tasks have been developed recently to study executive control in the preschool years, the constructs that underlie performance on these tasks are poorly understood. In particular, it is unclear whether executive control is composed of multiple, separable cognitive abilities (e.g., inhibition and working memory) or whether it is unitary in nature. A sample of 243 normally developing children between 2.3 and 6 years of age completed a battery of age-appropriate executive control tasks. Confirmatory factor analysis was used to compare multiple models of executive control empirically. A single-factor, general model was sufficient to account for the data. Furthermore, the fit of the unitary model was invariant across subgroups of children divided by socioeconomic status or sex. Girls displayed a higher level of latent executive control than boys, and children of higher and lower socioeconomic status did not differ in level. In typically developing preschool children, tasks conceptualized as indexes of working memory and inhibitory control in fact measured a single cognitive ability, despite surface differences between task characteristics.