Executive Functioning: A Comparison of the Tower of London^DX and the D-KEFS Tower Test

Abstract

This study compared the Delis-Kaplan Executive Function System (D-KEFS) Tower Test to the Tower of London (TOL)^DX in assessing executive functioning (EF) during a psycho-educational assessment by examining students’ performances on both tests. Forty-two university students were administered both tests in a counterbalanced order. Findings indicate that students did not perform significantly differently on the D-KEFS Tower Test than on the TOL^DX, but that the tests only shared 22% of their variance. Although the moderate correlation found between overall achievement scores indicates that the D-KEFS Tower Test assesses some similar EF abilities as the TOL^DX, the different problem spaces between these tests may be tapping into different constructs and may account for the non-shared variance.

Key words:

• adults
• D-KEFS Tower Test
• executive functioning
• Tower of London

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

The authors would like to thank Kevin Parker for his help with the statistical analyses and interpretation and the staff at the Regional Assessment and Resource Center for their help with data collection.

Notes

^a Mean total first move time.

^b Raw ratio scores.

∗p < 0.05. ∗∗p < 0.01.