The Stability of Individual Differences in Basic Mathematics‐Related Skills in Young Children at the Start of Formal Education

Abstract

The current study investigated the development of children's performance on tasks that have been suggested to underlie early mathematics skills, including measures of cardinality, ordinality, and intelligence. Eighty‐seven children were tested in their first (T1) and second (T2) school year (at ages 5 and 6). Children's performance on all tasks demonstrated good reliability and significantly improved with age. Correlational analyses revealed that performance on some mathematics‐related tasks were nonsignificantly correlated between T1 and T2 (number line and number comparison), showing that these skills are relatively unstable. Detailed analyses also indicated that the way children solve these tasks show qualitative changes over time. By contrast, children's performance on measures of intelligence and nonnumerical ordering abilities were strongly correlated between T1 and T2. Additionally, ordering skills also showed moderate to strong correlations with counting procedures both cross‐sectionally and longitudinally. These results suggest that, initially, mathematics skills strongly rely on nonmathematical abilities.

Ordinality: The importance of its trial list composition and examining its relation with adults’ arithmetic and mathematical reasoning

“…In the order task, participants have to decide if a sequence is presented in an order or not. Results from previous studies have indicated that there is a strong relation between performance on the order task and arithmetic performance in both children (Attout & Majerus, 2017;Lyons & Ansari, 2015;Lyons et al, 2014;O'Connor et al, 2018O'Connor et al, , 2019Sasanguie & Vos, 2018;Sommerauer et al, 2020;Vogel et al, 2015) and adults (Goffin & Ansari, 2016;Lyons & Beilock, 2009;Morsanyi et al, 2017;Orrantia et al, 2019;Sasanguie et al, 2017;Sella et al, 2020;Vogel et al, 2017Vogel et al, , 2019Vos et al, 2017). However, the mechanisms underlying this relationship remain relatively underspecified.…”

Conceptual replication and extension of the relation between the number line estimation task and mathematical competence across seven studies

“…Analyses revealed that children's performance on the NLE task was not correlated with later performance, demonstrating that the skills measured by this task may be unstable. Further results suggested the way in which children solve questions on the NLE task may qualitatively change over time (O'Connor et al, 2019). Thus, children's performance on the NLE task may reflect various other skills that develop over time, such as familiarity with numbers (Xu et al, 2021), or strategy use (Xu & LeFevre, 2016), not a single underlying numerical magnitude ability.…”

“…For example, multiple studies have shown low internal reliability for various versions of the NLE task (Hawes, Nosworthy, Archibald, & Ansari, 2019;Inglis & Gilmore, 2014;Kolkman, Kroesbergen, & Leseman, 2013). One study examined the stability of the NLE task in a sample with similar age groups and number line ranges as the current replication study (O'Connor, Morsanyi, & McCormack, 2019). Analyses revealed that children's performance on the NLE task was not correlated with later performance, demonstrating that the skills measured by this task may be unstable.…”

The role of numerical and non-numerical ordering abilities in mathematics and reading in middle childhood

“…Performance on all of these measures has consistently been shown to be related to math skills (e.g., Attout et al, 2014;Attout & Majerus, 2014;Lyons & Beilock, 2011;Lyons et al, 2014;O'Connor et al, , 2019Sasanguie et al, 2017;Vos et al, 2017), although the magnitude of such relations may change developmentally (Lyons et al, 2014). Individuals with dyscalculia also show impairments on these tasks (e.g., .…”

“…Most notably, we relied on a simple correlational design. Children were recruited from years 5, 6 and 7 of elementary schools, and it is likely that as children develop, and as the requirements of the school curriculum change, the most important predictors of math also change (see e.g., Lyons et al, 2014;O'Connor et al, 2019). Nevertheless, due to the relatively low number of children from each year group, it was not possible to investigate age-related changes in the contribution of each skill.…”