Executive Function from Observation and Reflection Tool (EFFORT): Validation of a Culturally Adaptable and Publicly Available Item Bank in Seven Countries

Abstract

Existing adult-report survey measures provide crucial information about children’s executive function (EF) development across contexts, but lack cultural relevance and ecological validity. To address these limitations, we introduce the Executive Function from Observation and Reflection Tool (EFFORT), a publicly available, open-source item bank designed for cross-cultural adaptation that includes 32 parallel items for caregivers and teachers across six EF domains: sustained attention, response inhibition, interference suppression, working memory, cognitive flexibility, and planning/organization. EFFORT additionally includes 10 assessor report items intended for use following a structured, standardized assessment session. This study presents the first validation of the tool within seven countries (Argentina, Australia, Bangladesh, Haiti, South Africa, Sri Lanka, United States) leveraging caregiver, teacher, and assessor observations of 1738 children (aged 3–11 years). Findings revealed acceptable fit for a six-factor structure for caregiver and teacher reports that were not empirically distinct, but yielded highly reliable composites. We further validated a 12-item short form for caregivers and teachers that demonstrated strong unidimensionality, gender invariance, and age-related increases. We demonstrated significant convergence of a short-form caregiver and teacher composite with the assessor-reported measures, as well as convergence of all three adult reports with direct assessments of children’s EF skills. This new tool holds promise to advance the science of how children develop and apply EFs to accomplish everyday goals across different cultural settings and in understudied populations.