Collaborative Research: Integrating Culturally-Responsive Measures and Comparisons to Strengthen Developmental Models of Reasoning and Executive Function

University Of California-Irvine, Irvine CA

Investigators

Abstract

Training children to reason and handle cognitive challenges in the midst of action is a key developmental goal in 21st century society, yet current approaches to training children’s thinking tend to undervalue diversity in the ways that families and life experiences foster growth. This project in particular considers the often complex and high effort cognitive activities that many first and second-generation Latinx youth take on (e.g. managing home chores that require multi-step solutions and attention to complicated constraints), and aims to explore how these practices may relate to more traditional models of Executive Functions (EFs), the set of shared cognitive resources believed to underpin educational and reasoning skills through the ability to manage and control attention. Importantly, the project aims to refine the developmental field’s theories of what constitute high leverage practices for growing EF skills to include meaningful management and participation in tasks with real-world consequences. If successful, this would suggest the need for a transformative shift away from training models centering on developing skills through repetitive use of cognitively taxing, abstract reasoning and attention tasks, generally on a computer, and toward intentionally providing children with responsibilities and consequential participation in everyday social and cultural practices. This might be a scalable, feasible approach to strengthen children’s cognitive EF resources through use in everyday reasoning. This project tests concerns that extant developmental models of Reasoning and Executive Functions do not capture the range of socialization practices that may train and shape expression of EFs in everyday usage. Mixed method data collection will be administered to first and second generation Latinx children and non-immigrant Euro-American children, including 1) EF and reasoning skill measurement using both traditional and newly developed, culturally responsive tasks, 2) surveys of children’s everyday responsibilities and autonomous activities, and 3) videotaped interviews and structured scenarios discussed together by a primary caregiver and child. This project is jointly funded by the Developmental Sciences Program and the Science of Broadening Participation Program. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.