A novel approach to measure executive functions in students: An evaluation of two child-friendly apps

Interest in measurement of children’s executive functions has shown a major increase over the past two decades. The present study evaluates two new apps (EYT and eFun) for measuring executive functions in children. The results of this study show that children (aged 5–8) enjoy executive function assessment in the form of games on an iPad. However, only one executive function, EYT working memory, showed significant positive correlations with several types of grades (e.g., English and maths) in primary school students. New, self-assessed, child-friendly executive function measurement tools have the potential to provide future possibilities for teachers to integrate information on cognitive ability into student learning plans

A game-based online tool to measure cognitive functions in students

Cognitive assessments can be expensive, lengthy and fatiguing for students and are often conducted in an artificial clinical context. In an effort to make the assessments more fun, researchers have started to introduce game elements to traditional cognitive tasks and training. This comes with a number of challenges. The main challenge is to develop an engaging tool that at the same time reliably assesses cognitive constructs in students. To address these challenges, this research aims to improve cognitive assessment with a new game-based assessment app that has been designed and developed in collaboration with researchers, teachers, students, and software engineers based on established cognitive theories, and subsequently validated through iterative testing in real world settings. The iterative development process is based on design-based research and includes cycles of design explorations, testing, analyses, redesign, and evaluation with students in authentic educational settings. The knowledge gained from the iterative process of designing a valid cognitive function app can inform other researchers who are aiming to develop cognitive assessment tools in an educational context

Poverty moderates the association between gender and school dropout in South African adolescents

This study examined prospective associations between poverty, gender, and school dropout in a large community sample of South African adolescents (baseline: n = 3515, follow-up: n = 3401, 57% female, age range at baseline: 10–17 years, mean age at baseline = 13.45). School dropout was defined as being enrolled in school at baseline assessment but no longer enrolled in school at follow-up assessment. Poverty was measured at baseline assessment using an index of access to the eight highest socially perceived necessities for South African children and adolescents. Demographic characteristics including child gender and age, province, and urban versus rural location were recorded at baseline assessment and controlled for in the analysis. As predicted, higher poverty scores (AOR = 2.01, p < .001) were associated with increased odds of school dropout 1 year later. Gender was not a significant predictor of school dropout (AOR = 1.56, p = .07) but did interact with poverty (AOR = 0.66, p = .04) in predicting school dropout. However, our initial hypothesis that the impact of poverty on school dropout would be stronger for girls than boys was not supported. Instead, results indicated that while girls were at elevated risk of school dropout at low and mean levels of poverty, at high levels of poverty this gender difference was no longer evident. Findings suggest that vulnerable boys should not be neglected in policies to improve retention in education in contexts of extreme poverty

Frequent mutated B2M, EZH2, IRF8, and TNFRSF14 in primary bone diffuse large B-cell lymphoma reflect a GCB phenotype

Primary bone diffuse large B-cell lymphoma (PB-DLBCL) is a rare extranodal lymphoma subtype. This retrospective study elucidates the currently unknown genetic background of a large clinically well-annotated cohort of DLBCL with osseous localizations (O-DLBCL), including PB-DLBCL. A total of 103 patients with O-DLBCL were included and compared with 63 (extra)nodal non-osseous (NO)-DLBCLs with germinal center B-cell phenotype (NO-DLBCL-GCB). Cell-of-origin was determined by immunohistochemistry and gene-expression profiling (GEP) using (extended)-NanoString/Lymph2Cx analysis. Mutational profiles were identified with targeted next-generation deep sequencing, including 52 B-cell lymphoma-relevant genes. O-DLBCLs, including 34 PB-DLBCLs, were predominantly classified as GCB phenotype based on immunohistochemistry (74%) and NanoString analysis (88%). Unsupervised hierarchical clustering of an extended-NanoString/Lymph2Cx revealed significantly different GEP clusters for PB-DLBCL as opposed to NO-DLBCL-GCB (P < .001). Expression levels of 23 genes of 2 different targeted GEP panels indicated a centrocyte-like phenotype for PB-DLBCL, whereas NO-DLBCL-GCB exhibited a centroblast-like constitution. PB-DLBCL had significantly more frequent mutations in four GCB-associated genes (ie, B2M, EZH2, IRF8, TNFRSF14) compared with NO-DLBCL-GCB (P = .031, P = .010, P = .047, and P = .003, respectively). PB-DLBCL, with its corresponding specific mutational profile, was significantly associated with a superior survival compared with equivalent Ann Arbor limited-stage I/II NO-DLBCL-GCB (P = .016). This study is the first to show that PB-DLBCL is characterized by a GCB phenotype, with a centrocyte-like GEP pattern and a GCB-associated mutational profile (both involved in immune surveillance) and a favorable prognosis. These novel biology-associated features provide evidence that PB-DLBCL represents a distinct extranodal DLBCL entity, and its specific mutational landscape offers potential for targeted therapies (eg, EZH2 inhibitors)

Measuring executive functions and problem solving in an engaging new way in students

Executive functions and problem solving are important skills for success in school and life. Measuring executive functions and problem solving with child-friendly tools that can be applied outside the traditional clinical settings remains a challenge. The overall aim of this PhD project was to design a new child-friendly online assessment tool (eFun) to better understand relationships among executive function constructs, problem solving and academic outcomes. The assessment tool eFun was developed in collaboration with designers, software developers, and researchers to ensure validity and usability. eFun measures problem solving ability and the core executive function constructs working memory, inhibition, and cognitive flexibility on an iPad. This PhD thesis addresses two major gaps in the executive function literature. Firstly, it introduces the development and evaluation of new cognitive tasks for children. Secondly, it addresses the relationship between executive functions, problem solving and academic outcomes. This research adds to the current limited evidence base by investigating children’s evaluation of game-based executive function and problem solving assessments and by exploring new approaches to measuring cognitive functions and validating executive function tasks for children. Furthermore, the thesis extends the literature by examining intercorrelations among the newly developed cognitive tasks and academic achievement, and compares results with existing theories. Findings indicate that children enjoy playing the newly developed eFun tasks, especially the inhibition task. Overall, low to medium associations were found between the performance scores of individual executive functions and between executive functions and problem solving. Furthermore, executive functions were found to be a predictor of academic success (grades), whereas the association between problem solving and academic outcomes was less clear. The eFun problem solving task was enjoyed more than the traditional Tower of Hanoi task. The eFun problem solving task performance was found to be positively associated with the Tower of Hanoi task performance, providing some initial evidence for convergent validity for the eFun problem solving task. The newly developed eFun tasks will offer enhanced opportunities to measure children’s cognitive functions (i.e., executive functions and problem solving) in a school context. This research advances the cognitive function literature and provides insights into new approaches to measuring cognitive functions in children

A New Online Assessment of Cognitive Functions: Problem Solving, Executive Functions and Academic Outcomes in Primary School

Problem solving is a critical skill for life and academic success. The identification of problem solving skills early in life requires appropriate assessment tools. However, to date well-structured problem solving tasks that children can both engage with and enjoy are lacking. This study reports on the evaluation of one such task (eFun Castle Adventure) developed as part of a research project that investigated related cognitive constructs (executive functions), a traditional problem solving task (Tower of Hanoi), and academic outcomes. A sample of 260 students aged 6-9 from three primary schools was tested on two problem solving tasks and three executive functions tasks (working memory, inhibition, and cognitive flexibility). Additionally, enjoyment rating with the problem solving tasks and grades were examined. The results showed that students enjoyed playing the new problem solving task more than the traditional task. Furthermore, we found moderate associations between the two problem solving tasks, low intercorrelations with executive function tasks, and low to medium correlations between executive functions and problem solving. Executive functions are related to and predict academic outcomes, whereas the relationship between well-structured problem solving and academic outcomes is less clear and needs further research. The new eFun problem solving and executive function tasks were found to be promising new measures to assess cognitive functions in an easy, accessible, and secure way in the classroom

Comparing the Child-Friendly eFun App with Traditional Executive Function Tasks in a Sample of Adults

Validating new executive function tasks for children is challenging because valid comparison measures are lacking. The traditional validated executive function tasks were designed for adults and are therefore not suited for assessment with children. Therefore, in this study we compared the new child friendly executive functions measurement tool (eFun) against the traditional executive function tasks in a sample of adult participants