Executive Functions and their Relationship to Academic Performance

Academic performance is related to study techniques and cognitive functioning; it involves attention, language and executive functions (FE) such as mental flexibility, hypothesis generation, abstraction and organization. They are associated with the frontal lobe of the brain and allow planning, behavior regulation and psychological processes (Flores, 2006). This will correlate the level of academic performance and the FAITH in students. The Neuropsychological Battery of Executive Functions and Frontal Lobes BANFE was applied. In order to determine if there was any type of damage or dysfunction at a neurological level that prevented the performance of the BANFE tasks, the Montreal Cognitive Assessment Test - MoCA was applied. From the calculation of an inferential analysis, differences and probabilities were established in the relationships between the variables studied, thus contrasting the hypothesis assumed, added to the correlated estimates of executive functions and academic performance.