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Pronounced developmental progression during the transition to formal schooling can be found in executive functions (EF) and metacognition (MC). However, it is still unclear whether and how EF and MC influence each other during this transition. Previous research with young children suggests that inhibition may be a prerequisite for monitoring skills. Thus, the present longitudinal study investigated the association between the common subcomponents of EF (inhibition, working memory, and shifting) assessed in kindergarten (T1) and metacognitive monitoring assessed in 2nd grade (T2) in a sample of N = 84 children. In line with our hypothesis, the results revealed a significant link only between the EF subcomponent inhibition and later metacognitive monitoring. More precisely, children with better inhibition skills in kindergarten showed less overconfident monitoring in elementary school. Interestingly, the longitudinal relationship between inhibition and monitoring was not bidirectional. The findings indicate an essential role of early inhibition skills regarding emerging and developing elementary school children’s monitoring skills.

Temperamental effortful control (EC) and executive functions (EF) are two frameworks for studying self-regulation in children. Despite stemming from different research traditions, they show many conceptual and theoretical similarities and their corresponding tasks are often used interchangeably. However, little is known about how and whether the two constructs can be distinguished empirically. The present study aimed to contribute to the investigation of this issue. A sample of 230 preschool children aged 4–6 years were tested with two common behavioral EC tasks and an EC questionnaire. Furthermore, the assessment included common measures of the three subcomponents of EF, namely inhibition, working memory, and shifting. Data were analyzed using correlational and confirmatory factor analyses. In accordance with our hypotheses, we found significant positive correlations between most EC and EF measures, and a single factor model, in which all EC and EF tasks loaded significantly on the underlying factor, was supported by our results. Moreover, this latent construct generalized across gender and age. These findings show that the variety of common EC and EF tasks used in this study all seem to tap similar aspects of self-regulation and therefore support an integrated model of self-regulation encompassing EC and EF. Our results are further considered to be informative for future research using different EC and EF tasks.

The aim of the study was to examine whether cognitive skills are related to persistence. Thus, children's (N = 157, mean age: 5.9 years) persistent and non-persistent behaviours (i.e., cheating and off-task) were assessed in an unsolvable task. Additionally, we assessed children's executive functions and temperament. Analysis for persistence showed that cognitive inhibition and cognitive flexibility predicted children's persistent behaviour, beyond age and temperament. Analyses for non-persistent behaviours revealed that temperament and weak executive functions predicted cheating, while age predicted off-task behaviour. Statement of contribution What is already known on this subject? So far, persistence has been conceptualized as a temperamental sub-dimension of self-regulation. What does this study add? A child's persistence depends not only on temperament but also on cognitive inhibition and cognitive flexibility. There are qualitative differences between the two non-persistent behaviours cheating and off-task. While cheating is related to weaker cognitive skills, off-task behaviour seems mainly age-related.