Quality of education and neuropsychological test performance

Abstract

Neuropsychologists are becoming increasingly aware that there is a complex interplay of cognitive, personality, and socio-cultural factors that affect an individual's performance on neuropsychological tests. The current study investigated the relationship between quality of education and learners' performance on neuropsychological tests of executive function. The sample included 40 high school learners : Group A comprised 20 learners with a high quality of education and Group B comprised 20 learners with a low quality of education. Four tests of executive function were administered, namely : the Verbal Fluency Test, the Design Fluency Test, the Stroop Test, and the Wisconsin Card Sorting Test (WCST). The results indicated that quality of education significantly affected the participants' performance, with Group A performing significantly better than Group B on all the tests of executive function. These findings have implications for the interpretation of neuropsychological test performance in cross-cultural research and practice.