TY - JOUR
T1 - What counts in preschool number knowledge? A Bayes factor analytic approach toward theoretical model development
AU - Mou, Yi
AU - Berteletti, Ilaria
AU - Hyde, Daniel C.
N1 - This work was funded by a National Science Foundation Grant to D.C.H. (DRL 1252445).
PY - 2018/2
Y1 - 2018/2
N2 - Preschool children vary tremendously in their numerical knowledge, and these individual differences strongly predict later mathematics achievement. To better understand the sources of these individual differences, we measured a variety of cognitive and linguistic abilities motivated by previous literature to be important and then analyzed which combination of these variables best explained individual differences in actual number knowledge. Through various data-driven Bayesian model comparison and selection strategies on competing multiple regression models, our analyses identified five variables of unique importance to explaining individual differences in preschool children's symbolic number knowledge: knowledge of the count list, nonverbal approximate numerical ability, working memory, executive conflict processing, and knowledge of letters and words. Furthermore, our analyses revealed that knowledge of the count list, likely a proxy for explicit practice or experience with numbers, and nonverbal approximate numerical ability were much more important to explaining individual differences in number knowledge than general cognitive and language abilities. These findings suggest that children use a diverse set of number-specific, general cognitive, and language abilities to learn about symbolic numbers, but the contribution of number-specific abilities may overshadow that of more general cognitive abilities in the learning process.
AB - Preschool children vary tremendously in their numerical knowledge, and these individual differences strongly predict later mathematics achievement. To better understand the sources of these individual differences, we measured a variety of cognitive and linguistic abilities motivated by previous literature to be important and then analyzed which combination of these variables best explained individual differences in actual number knowledge. Through various data-driven Bayesian model comparison and selection strategies on competing multiple regression models, our analyses identified five variables of unique importance to explaining individual differences in preschool children's symbolic number knowledge: knowledge of the count list, nonverbal approximate numerical ability, working memory, executive conflict processing, and knowledge of letters and words. Furthermore, our analyses revealed that knowledge of the count list, likely a proxy for explicit practice or experience with numbers, and nonverbal approximate numerical ability were much more important to explaining individual differences in number knowledge than general cognitive and language abilities. These findings suggest that children use a diverse set of number-specific, general cognitive, and language abilities to learn about symbolic numbers, but the contribution of number-specific abilities may overshadow that of more general cognitive abilities in the learning process.
KW - Approximate number system
KW - Bayes factor
KW - Counting
KW - Early symbolic number knowledge
KW - Executive function
KW - Numerical cognition
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U2 - 10.1016/j.jecp.2017.07.016
DO - 10.1016/j.jecp.2017.07.016
M3 - Article
C2 - 28888192
AN - SCOPUS:85034033146
SN - 0022-0965
VL - 166
SP - 116
EP - 133
JO - Journal of Experimental Child Psychology
JF - Journal of Experimental Child Psychology
ER -