The mediating role of executive functions between socioeconomic status and academic achievement: a meta-analytic structural equation model

Abstract: This study examined executive functions as a mediator of the association between socioeconomic status and children’s academic achievement, using the method of Meta-Analytic Structural Equation Modeling (MASEM). Based on 34 empirical articles (45, 916 students in total) up to August 2022, we found that executive functions partially mediate the relationship between socioeconomic status and academic achievement, and the indirect effect was significant (b=.094). Partial mediation was also found in the longitudinal subsample. The result of moderator analyses showed that the relationship between executive functions and academic achievement tended to diminish with age, and that the relationship between SES and EF tended to be weaker in boys than in girls.