Differences and Associations in Symbolic and Non-Symbolic Early Numeracy Competencies of Chilean Kinder Grade Children, considering Socioeconomic Status of Schools

Sepúlveda, Felipe; Rodríguez, Cristina; Peake, Christian

doi:10.1080/10409289.2019.1609819

Cited by 11 publications

(14 citation statements)

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“…These results are particularly relevant for Chile, a Latin American country whose education system presents high levels of economic segregation, with high-SES students almost exclusively attending private schools and low-SES students attending public schools ( Ortiz, 2015 ; Córdoba et al, 2017 ). The consequences of this segregation may be observed in the striking differences in numerical performance between children from high- and low-SES schools, with the former outperforming the latter ( Sepúlveda et al, 2020 ). We showed that the effect of SES on MA is similar to that of SES on academic achievement.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Longitudinal Performance in Basic Numerical Skills Mediates the Relationship Between Socio-Economic Status and Mathematics Anxiety: Evidence From Chile

2021

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Socio-economic status (SES) and mathematical performance seem to be risk factors of mathematics anxiety (MA) in both children and adults. However, there is little evidence about how exactly these three constructs are related, especially during early stages of mathematical learning. In the present study, we assessed longitudinal performance in symbolic and non-symbolic basic numerical skills in pre-school and second grade students, as well as MA in second grade students. Participants were 451 children (average pre-school age = 5 years, 6 months) from 12 schools in Chile, which differed in school vulnerability index (SVI), an indicator of SES. We tested an explanatory model of MA that included SES and longitudinal performance in basic numerical skills as predictors. The results showed a direct effect of SES on MA and a mediating effect of performance in symbolic and non-symbolic comparison tasks in pre-school. However, in second grade, only performance in symbolic comparison significantly mediated the SES-MA relationship. These findings suggest that performance in non-symbolic comparison plays an important role in explaining MA at initial stages, but that its influence is no longer significant by the time children reach formal instruction in second grade. By contrast, as children’s formal educational experience in mathematics increases, MA becomes linked primarily to symbolic numerical tasks. In sum, SES affects MA and this is due in part to the effect of SES on the development of numerical learning in pre-school, which in turn has an impact on subsequent, more complex learning, ultimately leading to differences in MA. We discuss the implications of these findings for preventing and acting upon the emergence of MA.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Longitudinal Performance in Basic Numerical Skills Mediates the Relationship Between Socio-Economic Status and Mathematics Anxiety: Evidence From Chile

2021

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“…Second, while school‐district level data indicated that children were sampled from a socio‐economically diverse student body, student‐level SES data were not available for the current dataset. Some researchers have suggested that there may be differences in the importance of EF for children of low‐ versus high‐SES backgrounds in nonsymbolic number skills (Fuhs et al., 2016; Fuhs & McNeil, 2013) or for the relation between symbolic and nonsymbolic number skills (Sepúlveda et al., 2020). Third, while the current study elicited robust congruency effects at both timepoints, which was the main effect necessary to investigate the question of focusing versus sharpening, we did not conduct a detailed analysis of the various visual parameters that led to a congruency effect.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Sharpening, focusing, and developing: A study of change in nonsymbolic number comparison skills and math achievement in 1st grade

Wilkey

Shanley

Sabb

et al. 2021

Developmental Science

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Children's ability to discriminate nonsymbolic number (e.g., the number of items in a set) is a commonly studied predictor of later math skills. Number discrimination improves throughout development, but what drives this improvement is unclear. Competing theories suggest that it may be due to a sharpening numerical representation or an improved ability to pay attention to number and filter out non-numerical information. We investigate this issue by studying change in children's performance (N = 65) on a nonsymbolic number comparison task, where children decide which of two dot arrays has more dots, from the middle to the end of 1st grade (mean age at time 1 = 6.85 years old). In this task, visual properties of the dot arrays such as surface area are either congruent (the more numerous array has more surface area) or incongruent. Children rely more on executive functions during incongruent trials, so improvements in each congruency condition provide information about the underlying cognitive mechanisms. We found that accuracy rates increased similarly for both conditions, indicating a sharpening sense of numerical magnitude, not simply improved attention to the numerical task dimension. Symbolic number skills predicted change in congruent trials, but executive function did not predict change in either condition. No factor predicted change in math achievement. Together, these findings suggest that nonsymbolic number processing undergoes development related to existing symbolic number skills, development that appears not to be driving math gains during this period.• Children's ability to discriminate nonsymbolic number improves throughout development. Competing theories suggest improvement due to sharpening magnitude representations or changes in attention and inhibition.• The current study investigates change in nonsymbolic number comparison performance during first grade and whether symbolic number skills, math skills, or executive function predict change.• Children's performance increased across visual control conditions (i.e., congruent or incongruent with number) suggesting an overall sharpening of number processing.• Symbolic number skills predicted change in nonsymbolic number comparison performance.

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“…De la misma manera, los resultados de Guzmán et al (2021), muestran igualmente para el caso chileno, que el rendimiento en tareas de comparación no simbólica tiene un rol relevante en la ansiedad matemática en las etapas iniciales, con una incidencia que disminuye en intensidad a medida que avanzan en la escolaridad. Sin embargo, es la comparación simbólica la que se erige como un predictor más robusto y consistente con el desempeño matemático a medida que se transita por el itinerario escolar (Cai et al, 2018;Xenidou-Dervou et al, 2018), aspecto que es igualmente relevado por Sepúlveda et al (2019) en el caso chileno, quienes detectan diferencias en tareas simbólicas asociadas a la instrucción formal, y poca diferenciación en las tareas no simbólicas.…”

Section: Discussionunclassified

Precursores de dominio específico y general del pensamiento matemático informal en preescolares chilenos

Cerda

Wilson

Chandía

2021

PSYE

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El pensamiento matemático informal fue analizado a partir de precursores específicos y generales. El presente estudio se focalizó en niños y niñas chilenos en torno a cuatro años de edad provenientes de establecimientos públicos que atienden a población de mayor vulnerabilidad social (N=137). Los hallazgos indican que ambos tipos de habilidades son parte de una base importante para el pensamiento matemático informal. El modelo general de regresión múltiple explica el 48.4% de la variabilidad de las puntuaciones obtenidas en el instrumento TEMA 3, relevándose como principales precursores, en orden de importancia, la comparación no simbólica, la comparación simbólica, memoria de corto plazo verbal, la velocidad de procesamiento, y la memoria viso-espacial, respectivamente. Asimismo, exceptuando la doble tarea y el conocimiento de conceptos, no se encontraron diferencias en los modelos explicativos al comparar niños y niñas. Los hallazgos fundamentan la necesidad de contar con un apoyo sistemático y prácticas de monitoreo en estas áreas en ciclos educativos iniciales con la finalidad de disminuir y evitar posibles dificultades de la matemática en general.

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Differences and Associations in Symbolic and Non-Symbolic Early Numeracy Competencies of Chilean Kinder Grade Children, considering Socioeconomic Status of Schools

Cited by 11 publications

References 70 publications

Longitudinal Performance in Basic Numerical Skills Mediates the Relationship Between Socio-Economic Status and Mathematics Anxiety: Evidence From Chile

Longitudinal Performance in Basic Numerical Skills Mediates the Relationship Between Socio-Economic Status and Mathematics Anxiety: Evidence From Chile

Sharpening, focusing, and developing: A study of change in nonsymbolic number comparison skills and math achievement in 1st grade

Precursores de dominio específico y general del pensamiento matemático informal en preescolares chilenos

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