A Construction Study Of Working Memory Test With Reliability And Validity Analysis For Primary School Students

Working memory is the ability for people to store and process information, and it is a limited resource system that has simultaneous temporary storage and processing. Individual working memory has close links with cognitive development and academic achievement. According to working memory theories and researches in china and abroad, based on Baddeley four-component model of working memory, present study constructed working memory test for primary school students and examined its reliability and validity.The test is constructed according to functions of four components of working memory. The phonological loop is measured by digit span task and non-word span task. The visuospatial sketchpad is measured by visual pattern span task and spatial span task. Focus attention task, switching attention task and dividing attention task examine the capacity of central executive. The semantic fluency tasks of animal and food examine the capacity of episodic buffer to retrieve information from long-term memory and the binding task examines the capacity of episodic buffer to combine information from different sources.211 students in grade 1-4 in a primary school in Minhang District in Shanghai were tested and reliability and validity were examined. Conclusions are as follows: Digit span task, visual working memory span task, dividing attention task and long term retrieval task had well stability and consistency. Non-word span task, spatial working memory span task and focus attention task had not well stability and need to be further modified. Taking academic achievement and working memory capacity as the criterions, the results showed that the test had acceptable criterion-related validity. The CFA result also showed the test had acceptable construct validity.