SES vs. Executive Functioning Skills: Comparing the long-term effects on reading and math achievement

Working memory and executive functioning skills are empirically supported predictors of reading and math academic achievement, with deficits in these skills being associated with lower academic performance. Furthermore, there... [ view full abstract ]

Working memory and executive functioning skills are empirically supported predictors of reading and math academic achievement, with deficits in these skills being associated with lower academic performance. Furthermore, there is a considerable amount of research that demonstrates the strong impact of socioeconomic status (SES) on academic achievement as well. While this effect is often dependent upon the measures used to determine socioeconomic status, consistent evidence shows that low SES has been associated with lower academic achievement

The goal of this study is to determine which potential influence--socioeconomic status or working memory/executive functioning skills—is more important for predicting the trajectory of students’ achievement in reading and math, as well as to determine the effect of the interaction between socioeconomic status and working memory on academic achievement.  The data will be drawn from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study (ECLS), Kindergarten Class 2010-2011, a nationally representative dataset collected by the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES). These data include 18,174 individuals from the United States who have been followed throughout elementary school, beginning in kindergarten.  Working memory and executive functioning skills will be defined as a composite of their scores on the Numbers Reversed subtest from the Woodcock-Johnson III Tests of Cognitive Abilities and the Dimensional Change Card Sort. Reading and math achievement were measured by scores on reading and mathematics assessments designed for the study. We will use these scores to conduct a linear growth curve model to assess and compare how well each variable predicts initial level and growth in reading and math achievement between kindergarten and second grade.

We expect our results to demonstrate the strong predictive validity of working memory/executive functioning skills on growth in academic achievement. Some studies have demonstrated that working memory/executive functioning skills are especially important for math achievement, and we anticipate that our results will align with these findings. Additionally, we expect that SES will have strong predictive validity on initial academic achievement. Finally, we anticipate that the interactions between SES and executive functioning will moderate the influence of executive functioning on achievement, providing evidence supporting the existence of an achievement gap in scholastic performance and cognitive abilities.