Shifting ability predicts math and reading performance in children: A meta-analytical study

By Nihal Yeniad, Maike Malda, J. Mesman, Marinus H. van IJzendoorn, S. Pieper. 2013

379 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Abstract Empirical evidence on the association between the shifting component of executive functioning and academic performance is equivocal. In two meta-analyses children's shifting ability is examined in relation to their performance in math ( k = 18, N = 2330) and reading ( k = 16, N = 2266). Shifting ability was significantly and equally associated with performance in both math ( r = .26, 95% CI = .15–.35) and reading ( r = .21, 95% CI = .11–.31). Intelligence was found to show stronger associations with math and reading performance than shifting ability. We conclude that the links between shifting ability, academic skills, and intelligence are domain-general.

Subfields: Education, Experimental and Cognitive Psychology, Statistics and Probability

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/949b5b330b8cd7f31e8c4a5f322bba853ab65bc5

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In Education

In Experimental and Cognitive Psychology

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Citations in the corpus

Executive function and metacognition: Towards a unifying framework of cognitive self-regulation (2017, background): “Those that exist suggest that intelligence is more closely related to objective measures of school performance than is EF (for a meta-analysis, see Yeniad et al., 2013), whereas EF has greater potential to contribute to the prediction of school performance over and above intelligence.”
Longitudinal contributions of executive functioning and visual-spatial skills to mathematics learning in young Chinese children (2019, result): “For the links between shifting and mathematics, our results were in line with a meta-analysis study of young children that demonstrated that the relations between shifting and mathematics were substantial across 18 studies (Yeniad et al., 2013).”
The Role of Executive Functions in Reading Comprehension (2017, background): “What little evidence exists is mixed— a few studies have reported a contribution of shifting to reading comprehension (e.g., van der Sluis et al. 2007; Yeniad et al. 2013), whereas others have failed to identify that connection (e.g., McLean and Hitch 1999).”
The Potential for School-Based Interventions That Target Executive Function to Improve Academic Achievement (2015, methodology): “Prior research has demonstrated an association between each of these subcomponents and achievement (Blair & Razza, 2007; Gathercole et al., 2004; Raghubar, Barnes, & Hecht, 2010; Yeniad et al., 2013).”
Skills underlying mathematics: The role of executive function in the development of mathematics proficiency (2014, neutral): “A recent meta-analysis demonstrated that shifting ability does predict performance in mathematics (Yeniad et al., 2013), however it remains unclear whether shifting is an independent predictor of mathematics over and above general intelligence.”