Relations among spatial skills, number line estimation, and exact and approximate calculation in young children

Gunderson, Elizabeth A.; Hildebrand, Lindsey

doi:10.1016/j.jecp.2021.105251

Cited by 13 publications

(14 citation statements)

References 100 publications

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“…Each child completed two practice trials and 22 test trials. On the 1 There are two other published studies using this longitudinal dataset (Gunderson & Hildebrand, 2021;Ren et al, 2019). 2 The larger longitudinal study included a number of other measures that varied by grade level and time-point.…”

Section: Spatial Skillsmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Spatial skills, but not spatial anxiety, mediate the gender difference in number line estimation.

Jing¹,

Dam²,

Gunderson³

2022

Developmental Psychology

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Recently, there has been increasing evidence showing that males estimate whole numbers more accurately than females on the number line. However, relatively little is known about what factors contribute to this gender gap. The current study explored potential mediators of the gender difference in number line estimation, including spatial skills and spatial anxiety. In the Fall (time-point 1 [T1]), 490 children from kindergarten through fourth grade (274 girls) completed age-appropriate measures of number line estimation, spatial skills (including proportional reasoning, mental rotation, mental transformation, and visuospatial working memory), and spatial anxiety. About 5 month later in the Spring (time-point 2 [T2]), children completed the same measure of number line estimation again. Boys were more accurate on number line estimation, proportional reasoning, and mental rotation than girls, whereas girls showed higher levels of spatial anxiety. Critically, spatial skills (a latent variable constructed from proportional reasoning, mental rotation, mental transformation, and visuospatial working memory) at T1 mediated the gender difference in T2 number line estimation whereas spatial anxiety was not a significant mediator. These relationships held even after controlling for T1 number line estimation, reading achievement, and reading anxiety. Among the four spatial skills, proportional reasoning and mental rotation (but not mental transformation or visuospatial working memory) were mediators of the gender difference in T2 number line estimation. These findings constitute, to our knowledge, the first evidence regarding factors contributing to the gender difference in whole number line estimation.

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Section: Spatial Skillsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…1There are two other published studies using this longitudinal dataset (Gunderson & Hildebrand, 2021; Ren et al, 2019). …”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Spatial skills, but not spatial anxiety, mediate the gender difference in number line estimation.

Jing¹,

Dam²,

Gunderson³

2022

Developmental Psychology

Self Cite

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“…In contrast, Yang et al (2021) did not find a mediative role of number line in connecting visual-perceptual and spatial visualization skills with arithmetic. The difference in findings between these studies may reflect the multidimensionality of spatial and mathematics skills, which may vary across development (Gunderson & Hildebrand, 2021).…”

Section: Explanations For Why Fraction and Decimal Magnitude Understa...mentioning

confidence: 82%

Reasoning about fraction and decimal magnitudes, reasoning proportionally, and mathematics achievement in Australia and the United States

2023

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There is strong evidence from research conducted in the United States that fraction magnitude understanding supports mathematics achievement. Unfortunately, there has been little research that examines if this relation is present across educational contexts with different approaches to teaching fractions. The current study compared fourth and sixth grade students from two countries which differ in their approach to teaching fractions: Australia and the United States. We gathered data on fraction and decimal magnitude understanding, proportional reasoning, and a standardized mathematics achievement test on whole number computation. Across both countries, reasoning about rational magnitude (either fraction or decimal) was predictive of whole number computation, supporting the central role of rational number learning. However, the precise relation varied, indicating that cross-national differences in rational number instruction can influence the nature of the relation between understanding fraction and decimal magnitude and mathematics achievement. The relation between proportional reasoning and whole number computation was fully mediated by rational magnitude understanding, suggesting that a key mechanism for how reasoning about rational magnitude supports mathematics achievement: proportional reasoning supports the development of an accurate spatial representation of magnitude that can be flexibly and proportionally scaled, which in turn supports children’s mathematics learning. Together, these findings support using measurement models and spatial scaling strategies when teaching fractions and decimals.

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“…The current work provides some of the first evidence for robust similarities between math and spatial domains, specifically, that these similarities are observed for attitudes in addition to skills. There is strong theoretical and empirical support for relations between math and spatial skills and achievement (e.g., Gunderson & Hildebrand, 2021; Mix & Cheng, 2012; Newcombe et al, 2015). In fact, some theorists have even argued that mathematical and spatial processing arise from the same magnitude processing system early in development, though others posit that quantity representations are better represented as similar but distinct systems (for review, see Hamamouche & Cordes, 2019).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…We specifically chose this task as it was both unfamiliar to children, and also had meaningful connections to math and spatial skills. Indeed, both numerical and spatial elements of the task impact accuracy (DeWind et al, 2015; Halberda et al, 2008), and in fact, performance on this task has been linked to other measures of math and spatial skill (e.g., Carr et al, 2020; Gunderson & Hildebrand, 2021; Halberda et al, 2008; Libertus et al, 2011).…”

Section: Math and Spatial Attitudesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Children underperform following “math” but not “spatial” task framing.

Hildebrand,

Cordes

2024

Developmental Psychology

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Increasing evidence suggests that success in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) fields is not only dependent upon one's actual STEM-relevant abilities but also upon one's STEM-relevant attitudes-in particular, math and spatial attitudes. Here, we examine whether simply mentioning the math or spatial relevance of a task affects children's performance and the moderating role of children's math and spatial attitudes. Further, we examine gender differences in performance given pervasive gender gaps in STEM and early-emerging gender differences in math and spatial attitudes. Participants (221 firstto fourth-grade children from the United States; 113 girls, 108 boys; 52% White, 16% Black, 14% Asian, 9% Hispanic or Latinx, 18% multiple races/ethnicities) were introduced to a novel task framed as tapping into math or spatial abilities (or no framing [control condition]). Children then completed math and spatial anxiety and self-concept measures. Results indicate that children who heard the math task framing were less accurate relative to children in the control condition, and the effect was larger for those with higher math anxiety or lower math self-concept, but it was not different for boys and girls. Children who heard the spatial task framing, however, performed comparably to children in the control condition. Though both math and spatial attitudes revealed identical patterns of gender differences (with higher anxiety and lower self-concept in girls than boys), there were no gender differences in performance. This study highlights the salient role of math attitudes early in development and provides key insights for future work aimed at increasing STEM outcomes. Public Significance StatementFindings reveal that children perform worse on a novel task when it is described as being related to math-but not spatial-skills, and this effect is strongest for children with more negative math attitudes. Moreover, girls had more negative math and spatial attitudes than did boys, but gender differences were not observed in performance on the task. Findings provide key insights into processes implicated in science, technology, engineering, and math outcomes.

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Relations among spatial skills, number line estimation, and exact and approximate calculation in young children

Cited by 13 publications

References 100 publications

Spatial skills, but not spatial anxiety, mediate the gender difference in number line estimation.

Spatial skills, but not spatial anxiety, mediate the gender difference in number line estimation.

Reasoning about fraction and decimal magnitudes, reasoning proportionally, and mathematics achievement in Australia and the United States

Children underperform following “math” but not “spatial” task framing.

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