Department of Medical and Surgical Sciences, Magna Græcia University of Catanzaro, Catanzaro, Calabria, Italia.
Neuroscience Center, "Magna Græcia" University, Catanzaro, Italy, Catanzaro, Calabria, Italia.
PeerJ. 2022 Sep 29;10:e14059. doi: 10.7717/peerj.14059. eCollection 2022.
Previous literature has shown that executive functions (EF) are related to performance in memory (M) tasks. Nevertheless, there is a shortage of psychometric tests that examine these two constructs simultaneously. The Test of Memory Strategies (TMS; previously validated in Spain and Portugal) could be a useful verbal learning task that evaluates these two constructs at once. In this study, we aimed to evaluate the psychometric properties of the TMS in an Italian adult sample.
One hundred twenty-one healthy volunteers (74 F, Mean age = 45.9 years old, SD = 20.4) who underwent a neuropsychological examination participated in this study. We conducted a Confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) to evaluate the structural validity of the TMS. We conducted a latent variable analysis to examine convergent and discriminant validity of the TMS sub-scale scores reflecting executive functions and memory. We also examined the TMS reliability in terms of internal consistency through the McDonald's omega.
The CFA confirmed the expectation that the TMS-1 and TMS-2 subtests reflect a factor and that the TMS-3, TMS-4, and TMS-5 subtests reflect a different factor. This result is in line with the prediction that TMS-1 and TMS-2 require the use of executive functions and memory simultaneously, and therefore we called this factor executive functions (EF); whereas the TMS-3, TMS-4, and TMS-5 subtests require less involvement of executive functions, thus reflecting a construct that we named memory (M). The TMS subtests for EF and M showed convergent validity with the test scores using a traditional neuropsychological battery, assessing memory and executive functions separately. Finally, the reliability of the subtests was good.
These preliminary findings suggest that TMS is a valid and reliable scale to simultaneously assess M and EF while among Italian healthy adults.
先前的文献表明，执行功能（EF）与记忆（M）任务的表现有关。然而，目前缺乏同时检查这两个结构的心理测量测试。记忆策略测试（TMS；先前在西班牙和葡萄牙得到验证）可能是一种有用的言语学习任务，可以同时评估这两个结构。在这项研究中，我们旨在评估 TMS 在意大利成年样本中的心理测量特性。
121 名健康志愿者（74 名女性，平均年龄=45.9 岁，标准差=20.4）接受了神经心理检查，参加了这项研究。我们进行了验证性因素分析（CFA），以评估 TMS 的结构有效性。我们进行了潜在变量分析，以检验反映执行功能和记忆的 TMS 子量表分数的收敛和区别效度。我们还通过 McDonald's omega 检查了 TMS 的可靠性。
CFA 证实了 TMS-1 和 TMS-2 子测试反映一个因素，而 TMS-3、TMS-4 和 TMS-5 子测试反映另一个因素的预期。这一结果与 TMS-1 和 TMS-2 同时需要执行功能和记忆的预测一致，因此我们将这个因素称为执行功能（EF）；而 TMS-3、TMS-4 和 TMS-5 子测试需要较少的执行功能参与，因此反映了我们称之为记忆（M）的结构。EF 和 M 的 TMS 子测试与使用传统神经心理测试分别评估记忆和执行功能的测试分数具有收敛效度。最后，子测试的可靠性良好。
这些初步结果表明，TMS 是一种有效且可靠的量表，可以同时评估意大利健康成年人的 M 和 EF。
