Development and Initial Validation of a Scale Measuring Young Children’s Self-Perceptions of Trait Cognitive Control

Abstract

ABSTRACT Cognitive control skills in early life are vital to success throughout the lifespan. Such skills have been positively linked to a host of important short- and long-term outcomes across many diverse domains. Similarly, self-perceptions such as self-efficacy, implicit beliefs about cognition, and self-concept have all been shown to predict meaningful variance in important outcomes like academic performance over and above measures of cognitive ability. To what extent do young children have a self-perception of their own level of cognitive control functioning? To date, no measures have been developed to assess young children’s perceptions of their own skills in this regard. In this study, we aimed to develop and validate a scale capturing children’s self-perceptions of their cognitive control skills via a puppet interview. Scale analyses of interviews from 125 children aged 4 through 7 years suggest the scale elicits responses that cluster around two correlated, but separable components: 1) Self- and Emotion-Regulation, and 2) Attention Modulation. Responses on these two subscales showed moderate to strong internal consistency, were strongly correlated with parent reports of similar skills, and self-reports of related constructs, but showed no systematic relation to behavioral tasks measuring executive functioning abilities. The findings suggest that young children are capable of reflecting and reporting on their own cognitive control skills and that these skills correspond to parent reports of similar abilities. Further scale refinement and targeted validation efforts are needed; however, these encouraging early results suggest the new scale holds potential to uncover how children’s self-perceptions influence their learning success.