6/1/2024 – 5/31/2026
$105,752
Given its correlation with academic outcomes, executive function (EF) remains one of the most investigated constructs in cognitive science and education. EF is sometimes assessed to determine qualification for and assignment to educational services, particularly as they relate to special education services. However, differences by ethnicity/race are apparent across EF assessments in the literature. Our approach asserts that the presence of differences is not inherently harmful; rather, the problem arises when these differences are interpreted as indicators of inferiority and used to draw deficit-based conclusions. The proposed study examines three primary research questions: Whether student performance on widely used tests of EF systematically differs on the basis of (1) race of the assessor matching vs. not matching that of the child or (2) context of assessment, and (3) whether these effects differ by child race. We will employ an experimental approach to assess whether assessor race and/or assessment context affect children’s performance on EF tasks and whether potential negative effects of race mismatch are exacerbated for Black children, throwing into question much of the extant literature in developmental and educational psychology in which data collectors have most often been White. This study will use a 2 (race match: match, non-match) x 3 (context: lab, school, home) x 2 (child race: White, Black) design. In addition, we will collect self-report data from parents about household and family characteristics. We will also conduct semi-structured qualitative interviews with a subset of parents of children enrolled in the study to help in the meaning-making process of our work. The research team is Dana Miller-Cotto, PhD, from Kent State University and Andrew Ribner, PhD, from the University of Pittsburgh.