How does task switching affect arithmetic strategy use in children with low mathematics achievement? Evidence from compu
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How does task switching affect arithmetic strategy use in children with low mathematics achievement? Evidence from computational estimation Hongxia Li 1 & Xiaoteng Hua 1 & Yalin Yang 1,2 & Bijuan Huang 1 & Jiwei Si 1 Received: 21 November 2018 / Revised: 14 May 2019 / Accepted: 22 May 2019 # Instituto Superior de Psicologia Aplicada, Lisboa and Springer Nature B.V. 2019
Abstract Although an increasing number of studies have suggested that students with low mathematics achievement (LMA) tend to perform worse in arithmetic strategy use than children with typical development, the potential reasons remain unclear. Accordingly, the current study investigated the potential impact of task switching on strategy use for children with LMA in computational estimation. In order to determine whether the differences in strategy use by children with LMA were due to a developmental delay or a developmental defect, 21 sixth-graders with LMA, 20 sixth-grader age-matched normal students (AM), and 21 fifth-grade math achievement– matched normal students (MM) were selected. The combination of choice/no-choice method and switching paradigm was employed. Results showed that task switching had significant effects on rounding-down strategy in the strategy execution condition for all groups. However, its effect on rounding-up strategy was significant only for the LMA group. In addition, the AM group outperformed significantly the LMA and MM groups on strategy choice, but the latter two groups did not significantly differ. These results suggest that strategy switch costs were influenced by participants and strategy characteristics. Moreover, poor performance of strategy choice in LMA children was likely due to a developmental delay rather than a defect. Keywords Low mathematics achievement . Task switching . Computational estimation . Strategy execution . Strategy choice
Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (https://doi.org/10.1007/s10212-01900425-9) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.
* Jiwei Si [email protected]
1
School of Psychology, Shandong Normal University, No. 88 East Wen Hua Road, Li Xia District, Jinan 250014 Shandong, China
2
Jinglun Primary School, Jinan, China
H. Li et al.
Introduction A strategy can be defined as “a procedure or a set of procedures for achieving a high level goal of task” (Lemaire & Reder, 1999). Lemaire and Siegler (1995) proposed a general theoretical framework consisting of four dimensions to describe developmental changes in strategy competence, which includes strategy repertoire, strategy distribution (or frequency), strategy execution (i.e., how fast and accurately are the strategies executed?), and strategy choice (i.e., which strategies are chosen on which problems?) (Imbo, Duverne, & Lemaire, 2007). As a core part of a cognitive process, strategy use not only determines individuals’ ultimate cognitive performance but also reflects their mental processes and cognitive processing level. According to the framework, strategy
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