RCT of a tablet-based math curriculum for preschool children in Mexico City

• In Event: Highlighted Session: Global Mathematics Education Highlighted Session: Promising Instructional Practices for Mathematics in Low- and Middle-Income Countries

Proposal

Mathematics competence is highly associated with economic prosperity, at both the individual (Murnane & Levy, 1996) and the national levels (Hanushek, Jamison, Jamison & Woessmann, 2008). In the case of Mexico, more than half of 15 year-old students are unable to achieve the basic levels of math skills that modern society demands, based on results from the most recent PISA assessment (OECD, 2014). Inequalities in math performance between Mexican middle school students of diverse socioeconomic backgrounds are also among the highest in Latin America (INEE, 2008).

Research findings suggest that key processes of mathematics thinking are developed in preschool, particularly number sense, and that gaps in quantitative skills between children from different socioeconomic backgrounds have been observed in children as early as age two (National Research Council, 2009; Jordan, Kaplan, Olah, & Locuniak, 2006). In addition, evidence shows that early number sense can be enhanced when children engage in practices, or receive explicit instruction, to develop numerosity skills (Jordan et al., 2012; Dyson et al., 2013; Wilson et al., 2009; Siegler, 2009).
Therefore, several educational interventions have been designed to help children from low socioeconomic status, who perform poorly in math, engage directly in activities to help them develop numeracy skills. Findings show that these interventions can help these students improve their performance and, in some cases, catch-up with their better performing peers (Dyson et al., 2013; Griffin & Case, 1997; Griffin et al., 1994).

Given the low performance in mathematics international assessments, as well as the high inequalities observed among Mexican students, designing interventions to develop number sense in preschool may be the most efficient way to improve future math competence and reduce the gaps in quantitative cognitive outcomes (Garduno, 2016). This presentation will describe a randomized control trial (RCT), conducted in preschools located in underserved areas in Mexico City, examining the effect of a math curriculum on the development of number sense and quantitative skills of children ages 5 to 6.

The math curriculum was built as an application for iPads, by a developer in Massachusetts, and translated to Spanish. The app, free and available online at the iTunes store, includes 25 activities on number concepts, relations, ordering and counting. Students advance to increasing levels of difficulty within the app, based on their performance. Performance within each activity is monitored based on the speed and accuracy in completing different tasks. Children can take between 2.7 and 4.3 hours to complete the full curriculum, and can work on the app regardless of Internet connectivity. Teachers and parents can have access to an online dashboard, to help them monitor children’s progress in real time, if connectivity is available. Finally, the app may be used with or without adult supervision.

Eight schools participated in the study, with an analytic sample of 249 students. Random assignment was conducted at the student level, blocking by school and class. Children in the treatment group worked with the math app, while those in the control group used a drawing application with no educational content. A control group using an iPad with no educational content ensured that conditions between students were equivalent, except for access to the math app. No teachers were involved in this intervention. Research assistants worked with students, offering basic instructions and no pedagogical support. Students worked for half an hour each day, for ten days. Pre and post-test data were collected on measures of student’s cognitive skills, as well as contextual information from families (Garduno, 2016).

This study found a small potential positive effect of the math app on quantitative abilities in this sample of children, though there was a lack of statistical power to find significant effects. Given that more than half of children in this sample had mothers with less than 11 years of education (had not completed high school), there is some evidence that the net effect of the math app is potentially positive (Garduno, 2016).

However, heterogeneous effects of the treatment were found for mothers’ years of education. A statistically significant interaction between the treatment and mother’s years of education revealed that the impact of the math app was significantly higher for children whose mothers had fewer years of education. The frequency of home numeracy activities, particularly counting rhymes, is also statistically significant in a regression model that includes the interaction between the treatment and mother’s years of education. These findings suggest that, for students whose mothers have low educational achievement, the impact of the math app is even higher when numeracy practices are absent at home (Garduno, 2016).

References

Dyson, N. I. 1., Jordan, N. C. 1., & Glutting, J. (2013). A number sense intervention for low-income kindergartners at risk for mathematics difficulties. Journal of Learning Disabilities, 46(2), 166-181.

Garduno, A. E. (2016). “Preschool and Educational Technology: Evaluating a Tablet-Based Math Curriculum in Mexico City”. Doctoral Thesis. Harvard University Graduate School of Education.

Griffin, S. A., Case, R. & Siegler, R. S. (1994). Rightstart: Providing the central conceptual prerequisites for first formal learning of arithmetic to students at risk for school failure In K. McGilly (Ed.), Classroom lessons: Integrating cognitive theory and classroom practice. (pp. 25). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

Griffin, S., & Case, R. (1997). Re-thinking the primary school math curriculum: An approach based on cognitive science. Issues in Education, 3(1), 1.

Hanushek, E., Woessmann, L., Jamison, E., Jamison, D. (2008). Education and economic growth. Education Next, 8(2), 62-70.

INEE (2008). Resultados Nacionales. Segundo estudio Regional comparativo y explicativo 2006 (SERCE). Retrieved from: http://www.inee.edu.mx/images/stories/Publicaciones/Estudios_internacionales/SERCE/completo/serce2006completo.pdf

Jordan, N. C., Kaplan, D., Olah, L. N. & Locuniak, M. N. (2006). Number Sense Growth in Kindergarten: A Longitudinal Investigation of Children at Risk for Mathematics Difficulties. Child Development, 77(1), 153 -175.

Jordan, N.C, Glutting, J., Dyson, N., Hassinger-Das, B., & Irwin, C. (2012). Building kindergartners' number sense: A randomized controlled study. Journal of Educational Psychology, 104(3), 647-660.

Murnane, R. J., & Levy, F. (1996). Teaching the new basic skills. Principles for educating children to thrive in a changing economy. New York: The Free Press.

National Research Council. (2009). Mathematics Learning in Early Childhood: Paths Toward Excellence and Equity. Committee on Early Childhood Mathematics, Christopher T. Cross, Taniesha A. Woods, and Heidi Schweingruber, Editors. Center for Education, Division of Behavioral and Social Sciences and Education. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press.

Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (2014). PISA 2012 Results: What Students Know and Can Do – Student Performance in Mathematics, Reading and Science (Volume I). PISA, OECD Publishing.

Siegler, R. S., & Ramani, G. B. (2008). Playing linear numerical board games promotes low-income children's numerical development. Developmental Science, 11(5), 655-661.

Siegler, R. S. (2009). Improving the numerical understanding of children from low-income families. Child Development Perspectives, 3(2), 118-124.

Wilson, A. J., Dehaene, S., Dubois, O., & Fayol, M. (2009). Effects of an adaptive game intervention on accessing number sense in low-socioeconomic-status kindergarten children. Mind, Brain, and Education, 3(4), 224-234.

Authors

• Ana Eugenia Garduno, University of Texas at Arlington

• Marc S Schwartz, University of Texas at Arlington