I would recommend on experimental battery though nothing specific come to my mind yet. It's just that in my opinion experimental batteries are better than inventories, though you need them too in case that you want to validate real world effects. 

BCR which is used to diagnose attention deficit maybe? Or other tasks that been validated to correlate with executive functions (age related). Funny thing, read pretty much about that but nothing come to mind now.. 

It depends on your population and specific question(s). Executive functioning is an umbrella term and consists of many specific skills and domains (e.g. inhibition, planning, organising). My experience is that several tasks are needed to assess executive functioning in a comprehensive way, since it may be possible that a person may achieve good results on one task (e.g. Stroop) but not on another (e.g. Wisconsin Card Sorting Task) which may indicate specific problems within the domain of executive functioning. An inventory, such as the Behavior Rating Inventory of Executive Functions (BRIEF) may reveal additional information and is said to have an higher ecological validity. For example, a person may achieve average or good results on tasks, but may experience difficulties with executive functioning in his/her daily life. The opposite is also possible of course. Further, using both the BRIEF self-report and the informant version may reveal different patterns of information. 

Perhaps the attached article might provide some further food for thought on this topic. 

Dear Nisha,

I would definitely say: tests and/or experimental batteries. Rating scales are too subjective to yield valid information. But much depends on the population of interest (children, adults, elderly, atypical populations, patients?) and on your research questions. If you please specify, perhaps we can give more articulated answers.

However, I noted in your page that you are interested in meditation and related topics; so I thought that perhaps you could be interested in the following article.

Best wishes!

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/303710422_The_mental-attention_Tai_Chi_effect_with_older_adults

Article The mental-attention Tai Chi effect with older adults

I do agree with previous comments. I've also found the Hayling and Brixton Test quite sensitive to frontal damage.

Hello Nisha,   I've been entranced by the complex question of assessing Executive Functioning (EF) for 40 years in clinical settings. Experience in Psychiatric and Correctional populations suggest that there are two domains of EF: concrete-literal thinkers, & gifted, overexcitable thinkers. Bright concrete thinkers, who are unconflicted by emotional issues, do well on go-no go tasks, less well on abstract tasks. Gifted thinkers show lower scores on concrete tasks that factor highly on reaction time, and higher scores that are abstract & challenging. See the work of Linda Silverman (eg, Asynchrony), and the wealth of papers examining the non-normative scores of gifted people, such as: Gallagher, S. A. ( 2013). Building bridges: Research on gifted children's personality from three psychological theories. In C. S., Neville, M. M., Piechowski, S. S., Tolan, (Eds.) Off the charts  : Asynchrony and the gifted child.(pp.48-98). Unionville, NY: Royal Fireworks Press.

In my experience, this body of work persuades a reasonable researcher that EF needs to be researched in the context of sub-groups: it does not fit a bell-curve assumption. Once this caveat is honoured, the confounded data in papers researching EF will make much more sense.      Good fortune in your work,   Psychologist Paul McGaffey PhD(ABD)

As an occupational therapist (OT) I find the combination of neuropsychology assessments and OT functional assessment provides the most effective and reliable assessment of executive function. The combination of approaches ensures there is more ecological validity. As an OT I like assessments such as the multiple errands and executive function performance test. General observation in tasks such as cooking and shopping also provide further understanding of executive function. Referring back to my neuropsychology colleagues findings and comparing the results helps us to pinpoint the areas of further assessment and focus.

Thanks, a lot. All your valuable suggestions were very helpful to me. Thanks again