In a sample of 23 adolescents aged 12-18 (Mean=14.1), the thinkSMART
program was found to improve parent-rated EFs in the following areas
(p<.05): shifting, emotion regulation, initiation, working memory,
planning, organization and self-monitoring. We were interested in
examining whether individual differences in motivation, as assessed on
parent-report questionnaire, was associated with greater improvements
following the program. Regression analyses indicated that greater changes
in motivation (that is, improvements in motivation) were associated with
more improvement in the following areas of EF: Inhibition, shifting,
emotion regulation, working memory, planning, self-monitoring, and overall
executive functioning. In fact, even when controlling for baseline levels
of motivation in the regression model, increased motivation from pre- to
post-thinkSMART intervention continued to be associated with changes in
areas of: task initiation, working memory, planning, and overall executive
functioning. In each of these areas except for task initiation, baseline
motivation was no longer associated with outcome once the effect of change
in motivation was included in the model. These results suggest that
baseline motivation is important for intervention success, but highlight
the idea that teens who were able to recruit greater motivation throughout
the course of the intervention were more likely to show improvements in EF.