Positive Math Attitudes Are Associated With Greater Frontal Activation Among Higher Socioeconomic Status Children

• In Event: I-Presentation Gallery

Abstract

Studies rarely investigate how cognitive, affective, and social factors interact to explain math achievement. To fill this gap, we asked 57 children to solve multiplication problems inside a functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) scanner. We obtained information on parental socio-economic status and children’s math attitudes. A cluster-wise regression analysis revealed a significant cluster in the left inferior frontal gyrus (IFG) sensitive to the interaction between these variables. This interaction was due to children with positive math attitudes from high socio-economic status families showing greater IFG activation when solving large multiplication problems, suggesting that they exhibited more retrieval effort to solve these problems. We argue that this group may have been engaged in the math opportunities provided by their environment.

Authors

• Macarena Suárez Pellicioni, University of Alabama

• Ece Demir-Lira, University of Iowa

• James Booth, Vanderbilt University