ERIC Number: EJ907687
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2010-Dec
Pages: 12
Abstractor: As Provided
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: ISSN-1040-3590
EISSN: N/A
Understanding Planning Ability Measured by the Tower of London: An Evaluation of Its Internal Structure by Latent Variable Modeling
Koppenol-Gonzalez, Gabriela V.; Bouwmeester, Samantha; Boonstra, A. Marije
Psychological Assessment, v22 n4 p923-934 Dec 2010
The Tower of London (TOL) is a widely used instrument for assessing planning ability. Inhibition and (spatial) working memory are assumed to contribute to performance on the TOL, but findings about the relationship between these cognitive processes are often inconsistent. Moreover, the influence of specific properties of TOL problems on cognitive processes and difficulty level is often not taken into account. Furthermore, it may be expected that several planning strategies can be distinguished that cannot be extracted from the total score. In this study, a factor analysis and a latent class regression analysis were performed to address these issues. The results showed that 4 strategy groups that differed with respect to preplanning time could be distinguished. The effect of problem properties also differed for the 4 groups. Additional analyses showed that the groups differed on average planning performance but that there were no significant differences between inhibition and spatial working memory performance. Finally, it seemed that multiple factors influence performance on the TOL, the most important ones being the score measurements, the problem properties, and strategy use. (Contains 7 tables, 1 figure and 1 footnote.)
Descriptors: Measures (Individuals), Planning, Inhibition, Short Term Memory, Spatial Ability, Cognitive Processes, Difficulty Level, Students, Factor Analysis, Regression (Statistics), Foreign Countries
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Publication Type: Journal Articles; Reports - Research
Education Level: N/A
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: N/A
Identifiers - Location: Netherlands
Identifiers - Assessments and Surveys: Stroop Color Word Test
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A