Convergent Validity and Effect of Instruction Modification on the Groton Maze Learning Test: A New Measure of Spatial Working Memory and Error Monitoring

Abstract

This study examined the convergent validity and effect of instruction modification on the Groton Maze Learning Test (GMLT), a computerized hidden maze learning test. Performance on the GMLT was compared to performance on widely used pencil-and-paper and computerized measures of working memory, route selection, and planning/problem solving in a sample of healthy young adults. Performance on GMLT outcome measures correlated with performance on comparator measures of working memory, route selection, and planning (r = 0.31–0.44). Instruction modification (withholding simple instructions) increased the number of rule-break errors on the GMLT (Cohen's d = 0.59). These results provide support for the convergent validity of the GMLT in assessing working memory, route selection, and planning/problem solving, and suggest that a simple instructional modification may yield a novel measure of executive function: feedback monitoring and procedural rule acquisition and application.

Keywords:

• Construct validity
• executive function
• instruction
• maze
• psychometrics