Measures and References: Cognitive Flexibility

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Measures

Numerous measures exist to gain a full picture of a student's learning strengths and challenges. Following are examples of measures used to assess this Learner Factor. These measures should be administered and interpreted by experienced professionals.

Trail Making Test (part B) (Bowie & Harvey, 2006): Measures Cognitive Flexibility by requiring learners to connect/draw a line between labeled points on a sheet of paper according to a rule of alternating between numbers and letters (e.g. 1-> A->2->B->3->C…).

References

Anderson, J. R., Carroll, I., Azcarate-Peril, M. A., Rochette, A. D., Heinberg, L. J., Peat, C., ... & Gunstad, J. (2017). A preliminary examination of gut microbiota, sleep, and cognitive flexibility in healthy older adults. Sleep Medicine, 38, 104-107.

Bowie, C., Harvey, P. D. (2006). Administration and interpretation of Trail Making Test. Nature Protocols, 1(5), 2277-2281.

Chen, E., & Miller, G. E. (2012). "Shift-and-Persist" strategies: Why low socioeconomic status isn't always bad for health. Perspectives on Psychological Science, 7(2), 135-158.

Dawson, D. L., & Golijani-Moghaddam, N. (2020). The COVID-19: Psychological flexibility, coping, mental health, and wellbeing in the UK during the pandemic. Journal of Contextual Behavioral Science, 17, 126-134.

Dommes, A., Chevalier, A., & Lia, S. (2011). The role of cognitive flexibility and vocabulary abilities of younger and older users in searching for information on the web._ Applied Cognitive Psychology, 25_(5), 717-726.

Dreisbach, G., & Goschke, T. (2004). How positive affect modulates cognitive control: Reduced perseveration at the cost of increased distractibility. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning Memory and Cognition, 30(2), 343-353.

Dreu, C. K. D., Nijstad, B. A., & Baas, M. (2011). Behavioral activation links to creativity because of increased cognitive flexibility. Social Psychological and Personality Science, 2(1), 72-80.

Gopnik, A., O'Grady, S., Lucas, C. G., Griffiths, T. L., Wente, A., Bridgers, S., ... & Dahl, R. E. (2017). Changes in cognitive flexibility and hypothesis search across human life history from childhood to adolescence to adulthood. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 114(30), 7892-7899.

Hodzik, S., & Lemaire, P. (2011). Inhibition and shifting capacities mediate adults' age-related differences in strategy selection and repertoire. Acta Psychologica, 137(3), 335-344.

Ihle, A., Mons, U., Perna, L., Oris, M., Fagot, D., Gabriel, R., & Kliegel, M. (2016). The relation of obesity to performance in verbal abilities, processing speed, and cognitive flexibility in old age: The role of cognitive reserve. Dementia and Geriatric Cognitive Disorders, 42(1-2), 117-126.

Kashdan, T. B., & Rottenberg, J. (2010). Psychological flexibility as a fundamental aspect of health. Clinical Psychology Review, 30(4), 865-878.

Kercood, S., Lineweaver, T. T., Frank, C. C., & Fromm, E. D. (2017). Cognitive flexibility and its relationship to academic achievement and career choice of college students with and without attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. Journal of Postsecondary Education and Disability, 30(4), 329-344.

Konig, Cornelius, J., Buhner, M., & Murling, G. (2005). Working memory, fluid intelligence, and attention are predictors of multitasking performance, but polychronocity and extraversion are not. Human Performance, 18(3), 243-266.

Masley, S., Roetzheim, R., & Gualtieri, T. (2009). Aerobic exercise enhances cognitive flexibility. Journal of Clinical Psychology in Medical Settings, 16(2), 186-193.

Ophir, E., Nass, C., & Wagner, A. D. (2009). Cognitive control in media multitaskers. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 106(37), 15583-15587.

Prior, A., & Gollan, T. H. (2011). Good language-switchers are good task-switchers: Evidence from Spanish-English and Mandarin-English bilinguals. Journal of the International Neuropsychological Society, 17(4), 682-691.

Rohlf, H., Jucksch, V., Gawrilow, C., Huss, M., Hein, J., Lehmkuhl, U., & Salbach-Andrae, H. (2012). Set shifting and working memory in adults with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder. Journal of Neural Transmission, 119(1), 95-106.

Shields, G. S., Trainor, B. C., Lam, J. C., & Yonelinas, A. P. (2016). Acute stress impairs cognitive flexibility in men, not women. Stress, 19(5), 542-546.