The Development of Relational Reasoning in South Korean Elementary and Middle-School Students: A Cross-Sectional Investigation

Abstract

Relational reasoning is a higher-order executive function that involves the ability to perceive meaningful patterns within a body of seemingly unrelated information. In this study, the ability of 749 fourth (Mage = 10), sixth (Mage = 12), eighth (Mage = 14), and tenth graders (Mage = 16) to identify meaningful relational patterns was investigated. This general cognitive ability was assessed by means of the Test of Relational Reasoning-Junior (TORRjr), a 32-item measure organized into four 8-item scales that assess analogical, anomalous, antinomous, and antithetical reasoning. Students’ performance on the TORRjr was analyzed using confirmatory factor analysis, measurement invariance test, and non-parametric median-based analyses. The confirmatory factor analysis supported that the higher-order factor model was the best fit for the TORRjr data for the Korean students. The measurement was determined to be invariant by gender but variant across grade levels. The non-parametric analysis resulted in an asymptotic (a constant increasing up to grade 6 and then a level off witnessed from grades 8 to 10) development pattern in overall relational reasoning across the grades. In comparison to analogy and anomaly, antinomy and antithesis scores were more fully developed by grade 8 and that level of performance was maintained at grade 10. The TORRjr appeared to be a viable measure for the Korean samples up to approximately 15 years of age. The significance of these findings for research and instructional practice are discussed.

Relational reasoning’s contributions to mathematical thinking and performance in Chinese elementary and middle-school students.

“…Because students at all grade levels took TORRjr, we were able to identify developmental trajectories for the four forms assessed (i.e., analogical, anomalous, antinomous, and antithesis). The patterns that emerged were similar to outcomes reported in prior studies (Chae & Alexander, 2019; Jablansky, Alexander, Dumas, et al, 2016, 2019).…”

“…It is also worth noting that antithetical reasoning items were among the more challenging for the students in this study. The difficulty of the antithetical reasoning items is a rather consistent finding across investigations involving both children and adults regardless of whether the TORR, TORRjr, or verbal discourse patterns were the data sources (Chae & Alexander, 2019;Jablansky et al, 2017). At present, we attribute this challenge to the fact that there are two judgments that this reasoning form seemingly requires.…”

“…For example, the conceptions guiding item development for each of the forms were based on an extensive review of literatures in mathematical set theory, intelligence and assessment, cognitive science, and cognitive neuroscience (Alexander & the DRLRL, 2012a;Baggetta & Alexander, 2016;Diamond, 2013;Dumas et al, 2013;Russell & Lackey, 1973;Spearman, 1927;Sternberg, 1977). Further, the scales and items constructed around these conceptions and the overall factor structure of the TORR and TORRjr have been empirically verified in a number of investigations conducted nationally (Hattan, 2018) and internationally (Chae & Alexander, 2019;Federiakin & Aleksandrova, 2017).…”

“…Further, given that scores on the analogical reasoning scale have routinely been the highest across age groups for the TORRjr (Chae & Alexander, 2019;Hattan, 2018), we would hypothesize that this form would be most closely linked to the children's performance on the mathematics and mathematics-related measures in the current investigation. However, due to the paucity of studies that have expressly analyzed the dissimilarity-based forms of relational reasoning in conjunction with mathematics, it is impossible to predict how anomalous, antinomous, and antithetical reasoning would align with children's perfor-mance on the more traditional mathematics or nontraditional mathematics-related measures.…”

Exploring Potential Educational and Social Contributors to Relational Reasoning Development

“…Similar trends have also been reported for in vitro studies, with younger populations showing somewhat higher performance on analogical and anomalous reasoning problems in contrast to antinomous and antithetical reasoning problems. This pattern has also manifested in international studies with Chinese (Zhao, Alexander, & Sun, 2020), Israeli (Jablansky, Alexander, Eilam, Aharon, & Sun, 2017), Russian (Federiakin, 2020), and South Korean (Authors, 2021) children, adolescents, and adults.…”