GEFI Resources

Guidelines for Conducting Direct EF Assessments

We compiled recommended practices for selection, adaptation, and administration of EF performance-based tasks and for processing, evaluating, reporting, and interpreting data that these tasks yield. We hope this resource will help researchers conduct more psychometrically rigorous and ecologically valid assessments of children’s EF skills, expanding scientific understanding of these skills across different cultures and contexts.

Adult Report of Children's EF behaviors

We developed and validated the Executive Function from Observation and Reflection Tool (EFFORT), a publicly available, open-source item bank designed for cultural adaptation. It includes 32 parallel items for caregivers and teachers. Each item consists of a stem that describes a universally relevant EF behavior, along with culturally relevant examples of activities and situations that elicit these behaviors. EFFORT also includes 10 assessor report items for use following a standardized assessment session. All items, adaptation guidelines, translated versions, and culturally-relevant examples can be accessed here: https://osf.io/k3edb.

Related Resources

Please complete the EFFORT Request Form to help us track the use of this new item bank and learn from your translation and adaptation of this tool.

Please cite this validation paper when using EFFORT: 

Obradović, J., Ahmed, I., Mazzaferro, M., Sulik, M. J., McCoy, D. C., Wolf, S., Draper, C. E., D’Sa, N., Howard, S. J., Lipina, S., Thennakoon, K., & Ghalibaf, E. (2026). Executive Function from Observation and Reflection Tool (EFFORT): Validation of a Culturally Adaptable and Publicly Available Item Bank in Seven Countries. Behavioral Sciences, 16(5), 693. https://doi.org/10.3390/bs16050693

 

We want to learn from your experiences supporting and/or studying children around the world.

Help us understand how children around the globe use and display executive functions by responding to a 30-minute survey about children’s experiences and behaviors in a community/culture you know well.