Ecological assessment of executive functions and reasoning in Colombian children: cross-validation and measurement invariance of the Spanish CORE-6/10

Ecological assessment of executive function (EF) in children relies heavily on informant-report instruments that rarely include logical-abstract reasoning, while culturally grounded measures developed originally in Spanish for Latin American populations remain scarce. This study examined the psychometric structure, internal cross-validation, and measurement invariance of the CORE-6/10, a Spanish-language informant-report instrument for children aged 6–10 years assessing five executive domains and two naturalistic reasoning dimensions: verbal-logical and perceptual-analytical reasoning. Validation used non-overlapping calibration and confirmation subsamples (N = 391; EFA: n = 195; CFA: n = 196), polychoric matrices, parallel analysis, ULS oblimin EFA, and WLSMV CFA; invariance was tested across sex, age, and informant type. The seven correlated-factor model was retained as the best-fitting admissible solution (CFI = .940, TLI = .935, RMSEA = .049, SRMR = .081). An exploratory bifactor analysis suggested substantial general-factor saturation (ωh = .71; ECV = .50), although estimation anomalies precluded treating it as a primary confirmatory model. Internal consistency was adequate (ordinal α = .76–.87), with change-based evidence consistent with approximate scalar invariance across comparisons (|ΔCFI| ≤.005). Reasoning dimensions showed general-factor loadings (.476–.735) comparable to core EF domains, suggesting shared variance with general executive functioning while retaining domain-specific variance. Findings support the empirical relevance of reasoning within this ecological measurement framework and the CORE-6/10 as a promising culturally grounded instrument for research in Colombian children, with potential future applications in school-based screening pending independent replication, multimethod validation, normative development, and evidence of classification accuracy.