Relationship among Children's Executive Function Difficulty, School Adjustment and Happiness: Using Autoregressive Cross-Lagged Modeling

This study investigated the relationship between children's executive function difficulty, school adjustment, and happiness using autoregressive cross-lagged modeling. For this purpose, data were drawn from the 9th (T1) through 11th (T3) waves (2016–2018) of the Panel Study on Korean Children (PSKC). A total of 1,329 children participated in the study. Data were analyzed using descriptive statistics, Pearson correlation analysis, and autoregressive cross-lagged modeling with SPSS 25.0 and AMOS 23.0. The major findings were as follows. First, it was confirmed that children’s executive function difficulty, school adjustment, and happiness at a previous time point had a longitudinal effect on those at a later time point. This study also revealed that children’s executive function difficulty, school adjustment, and happiness at an earlier point positively contributed to maintaining those characteristics at a later point. Second, reciprocal causation was identified between children’s executive function difficulty and school adjustment, as well as between school adjustment and happiness. However, reciprocal causation between children’s executive function difficulty and happiness was not observed. This study highlights the importance of children’s executive function difficulty, school adjustment, and happiness in child development. The findings will also contribute to the design of programs aimed at promoting children's executive function, school adjustment, and happiness.