Poster #76 - Features that Affect Parents’ Preferences for Different Counting Books

• In Event: 3-053 - Poster Session 10
  In Poster Session: PS 10 Section - Education, Schooling

Integrative Statement

Counting books and books with mathematical language can provide a rich source of input that promotes preschoolers’ understanding of mathematics (Mix et al., 2012; Purpura et al., 2017). Research has focused on the types of counting books available, finding wide variation in the ways in which number is represented (Powell & Nurnberger-Haag, 2015) and little focus on the cardinality of the set (Ward et al., 2017). However, the characteristics that parents focus on when choosing among different counting books are unclear. Do parents even consider the mathematically-relevant aspects of the books?
In the current study, parents of young children (ages 2;6-4;11; N = 696) were shown two pairs of counting books. For each pair, they were asked to select the one they would be more likely to choose for their child and to justify their selection. Unbeknownst to parents, one of the pairs pit a book with tactile counting features (e.g., pop-up bubbles that can be pressed as you count) against one without tactile features. The other pit one with a narrative story against one without a narrative. The specific books in each pair were selected randomly from a group of 10 possible books within each book type. Responses were coded for whether or not they positively mentioned: (a) the tactile features (e.g., “...it’s fun and tactile...”), (b) the narrative (e.g., “…likes books with as much ‘story’ as possible”), (c) the mathematics (e.g. “easier to count”), (d) the characters (“...loves Sesame Street characters.”), (e) the illustrations (e.g., “the pictures are...more appealing”), or (f) the book’s topic or theme (e.g., “…you can talk about family and travel”).
The pair of books that parents were choosing between (tactile/non-tactile or narrative/non-narrative) significantly influenced whether they mentioned the tactile (McNemar test, chi-square (1, N = 696) = 175.61, p < .001) or narrative features (McNemar test, chi-square (1, N = 696) = 20.54, p < .001), but it did not affect mentions of the other categories.
Across the two selections, parents were most likely to mention the illustrations (42.8% of responses), followed by the tactile elements (28.9%), the mathematical aspects (24.1%), the topic or theme (21.1%), the narrative (15.5%), and the characters (9.5%). Parents were significantly more likely to justify their book choice using the illustrations than the mathematical content, McNemar test, chi-square (1, N = 696) = 48.94, p < .001. Because of the importance of counting books as a source of mathematical input, we further examined the mathematical content that parents mentioned positively and found that parents most often focused on counting (77.4% of mathematical responses), followed by the ways in which number was represented in the book (29.2%), arithmetic (4.8%), other math-related language (4.8%), and one-to-one correspondence (3.0%).
These findings provide insight into what aspects of counting books parents focus on when deciding which books to read with their child. These results, alongside experimental work investigating how the features of counting books influence learning, will inform our understanding of how best to design and deliver effective counting books.

Authors

• Connor D. O'Rear, University of Notre Dame
  Presenting Author

• Shannon M. Gaylord, University of Notre Dame
  Non-Presenting Author

• Caroline Byrd Hornburg, Purdue University
  Non-Presenting Author

• Nicole McNeil, University of Notre Dame
  Non-Presenting Author