Bidirectional effects between reading and mathematics development across secondary school

Abstract

Reading and mathematical competencies are important cognitive prerequisites for children’s educational achievement and later success in society. An ongoing debate pertains to potential transfer effects between both domains and whether reading and mathematics influence each other over time. Therefore, the present study on N = 5185 students from the German National Educational Panel Study examined cross-lagged effects between reading and mathematics from Grades 5 to 12. The results revealed, depending on the chosen causal estimand, negligible to small bidirectional effects. Adopting a between-person perspective, students with higher mathematics scores at one point exhibited somewhat higher reading scores at the subsequent measurement. In contrast, when adopting a within-person perspective, both skills predicted longitudinal increases of the other skill in the lower grades but reversed effects in higher grades. Taken together, these findings not only demonstrate that transfer effects between reading and mathematics in secondary education tend to be small but also suggest different patterns of effects depending on the modeling choice.

Bridging the Connection Between Fluency in Reading and Arithmetic

“…In light of the bidirectional effect between fluency in reading and arithmetic [29], we tested the mediation effect of EFs on the fluency cross-domain relationship in both directions (reading fluency → EFs → arithmetic fluency and vice versa). A mediation analysis was conducted using Model 4 of the add-on process macro [90].…”

Remote Testing of Reading Comprehension in 8-Year-Old Children: Mode and Setting Effects

“…Reading abilities represent essential skills for successful participation in modern societies. Proficient reading abilities are not only important prerequisites to succeed in educational and occupational contexts (e.g., Spengler et al, 2018 ), but also shape the development of other domain-specific competences, such as mathematics ( Gnambs & Lockl, 2022 ). Therefore, the acquisition of appropriate levels of reading comprehension is a central goal in primary school.…”

Data from the National Educational Panel Study (NEPS) in Germany: Educational Pathways of Students in Grade 5 and Higher

“…From a methodological perspective, a variety of approaches can be applied to analyse the data, especially those that require longitudinal data. Studies based on NEPS SC3 data, for example, used growth curve modeling (e.g., Herke et al, 2019), different cross-lagged panel models (e.g., Gnambs & Lockl, 2022;Kleinkorres et al, 2020), latent change score models (e.g., Brandt & Lechner, 2022) or latent growth mixture models (Freund et al, 2021).…”