Abstract
Executive functioning (EF) skills are important in many aspects of life, including school and career success. They are imperative in an individual’s overall mental and physical well-being. These higher-order ‘top-down’ processes help to govern dimensions of human behaviour, allowing individuals to engage in goal-oriented behaviour. When they function optimally, they contribute positively to an individual’s life. There are numerous assessments created to measure executive functioning; however, few of these measures have been developed in healthy populations and most of these measures have been created in Westernised contexts. To date, no executive functioning measure created in healthy populations has been validated for use within a multicultural, non-Westernised context. The Executive Functioning Index (EFI; Spinella, 2005) is one of the few measures that assesses individuals’ executive functions in non-clinical populations. However, the EFI has only been validated for use within Westernised contexts. Hence, the present study aimed to validate the EFI for use within a multicultural context by investigating its internal structure within the South African context. The EFI comprises five subscales, namely, motivational drive (MD), impulse control (IC), empathy (EM), organisation (ORG), and strategic planning (SP). Participants (N=1904) were university undergraduate students from the University of Johannesburg on whom the EFI was administered. Results yielded adequate internal reliabilities with Cronbach’s alpha coefficients ranging between .52 and .66; McDonald’s omega coefficients ranging between .59 and .76; and Guttman 6 coefficients ranging between .48 and .65. Confirmatory factor analysis showed that a five-factor higher-order model revealed mixed results. While the absolute fit indices were satisfactory, the incremental fit values were not. While further validation studies will be beneficial, there appears to be some support for the EFI as a measure to be used in the South African context.
M.A. (Counselling Psychology)