Poster #75 - The Use of Drawing to Facilitate the Learning and Transfer of Mathematical Knowledge

• In Event: 1-005 - Poster Session 01
  In Poster Session: PS 01 Section - Education, Schooling

Integrative Statement

There has been a recent push to improve mathematical knowledge for students in the United States, given reported low-levels of math achievement (NAEP, 2009). A serious problem with math education is that even when novel math concepts are successfully learned, students often have a difficult time applying this knowledge to new situations and at later points in time. Thus, the research associated with developing mathematics curriculum needs to adapt to meet this challenge. The current research presents an innovative interdisciplinary exploration of the relationship between drawing and math.

Previous work has shown that the transfer of learning from one discipline to another creates new knowledge between subjects, allowing students to connect and apply what they learn in one subject to existing knowledge (Rachford, 2011). Arts integration has been shown to improve school readiness skills (e.g., Brown et al., 2010; Fleming et al., 2016; Hancock & Wright, 2017) and some correlates have been found between math ability and art (e.g., Chen, 2006; Goldsmith et al., 2016; Morin et al., 2017; Rachford, 2011). However, to the best of our knowledge, no study to date has examined the use of drawing to enhance the learning of mathematics concepts across development. This is particularly relevant given much work indicating that perceptual features impact the understanding of math concepts across the lifespan (e.g., Kaminski & Sloutsky, 2013; Posid & Cordes, 2014).

Adult participants (n=122, Mage=21.1 years, SD=4.7 years) first learned about a novel math concept. Participants then received an intervention, followed by a mathematical categorization task to test their knowledge and generalization of the math concept learned (Deng & Sloutsky, 2015; Posid & Sloutsky, 2016). During the intervention, participants were placed into one of three conditions (draw, write, control) and that was either “active” or “passive” in nature (e.g., free draw the learned rule vs. color in the learned rule). The dependent variable was accuracy in the mathematical categorization task. Demographic data, including prior art experience, was collected.

An initial omnibus linear regression analysis indicated that whether the intervention was active/passive impacted participants’ accuracy (B=.257, p=.006; Model: R2=.084, p=.067; Figure 1), with participants in all conditions of the active intervention performing at ceiling level. Secondary analyses were run for participants in the passive intervention only across conditions. A univariate ANOVA indicated that prior art experience interacted with condition (F[3, 70]=3.49, p=.02): those participants with prior art experience showed no differences across intervention conditions on the math task (p>.4) whereas participants with no prior art experience benefited significantly from the drawing intervention in their accuracy on the math task, as compared to a writing or control condition (F[3, 52]=6.44, p=.001; Figure 2).

Results from the present study serve as the first of their kind to systematically examine the impact of drawing on mathematics learning. Our results suggest that art training (both protracted or via a brief intervention) may lead to a better ability to recall and parse mathematical information, specifically in the face of varying perceptual information as seen in one’s natural environment.

Authors

• Tasha Posid, The Ohio State University
  Presenting Author

• Jennifer E. Drake, Brooklyn College, CUNY
  Non-Presenting Author