“Because I just knew it!”: Examining Kindergarten Children’s Development and Use of Addition Strategies

• In Event: Beyond Accuracy: Children’s Correct and Incorrect Strategies on Early STEM Tasks Provide Insights into Cognitive Development

Abstract

When learning addition, children typically progress from the use of basic to sophisticated addition strategies, and the use of more sophisticated strategies is associated with higher problem-solving accuracy (Bailey et al., 2012; Baroody, 1987; Siegler, 1996). However, children’s development and use of strategies can vary based on their other cognitive abilities. For example, children with higher math abilities use more sophisticated strategies and solve problems more efficiently and accurately (Vasilyeva et al., 2015). In addition, children with higher working memory capacity more frequently use sophisticated strategies and also show higher accuracy on addition problems (Cragg & Gilmore, 2014). As children’s development of increasingly complex math skills builds on their early problem-solving strategies and abilities, understanding influences on children’s early development and use of addition strategies is important. The current study examined the role of domain-specific (math) and domain-general (working memory) training on children’s use of addition strategies.

Participants were 225 kindergarten children (Mage=5.33 years, 50% female) recruited from public and charter schools on the east and west coasts of the United States serving predominantly Black and Latinx children from low-income backgrounds. Children were randomly assigned to complete one of four tablet-game training conditions: working memory focused training, math focused training, working memory and math training, and active control training. Children played the training games for approximately 10-15 minutes for 10 sessions across a 3-week period. Children also completed pretest, immediate posttest, and 1-month delayed posttest sessions, which included a measure of addition strategy, as well as other measures of math and working memory abilities.

Addition problems included simple numerical problems (e.g., 3+5), complex numerical problems (e.g., 14+8), and word problems. For all problems, children’s responses were coded for accuracy and strategy use, with higher scores indicating problems solved correctly with more sophisticated strategies (adapted from Chu et al., 2017). Coded strategies included retrieval, decomposition, guessing, counting in head, counting verbally or with fingers, and undetermined strategy (Table 1). Children’s overall accuracy and strategy use at each time point was summed and gain scores were calculated for change in total accuracy and strategy use over the three time points of the study.

Preliminary analyses indicate that children varied in their overall accuracy and strategy use for all problem types, and that math and working memory training may improve children’s addition strategy use. Specifically, children in the combined working memory and math training condition improved more than children in the math focused and active control conditions, but not the working memory focused condition on their combined strategy and accuracy scores for simple addition problems from pretest to posttest (F(3,221)=2.78, p=.042). However, these differences were not significant at the delayed posttest (Figure 1). No significant changes were seen for the complex numerical problems and word problems. Additional analyses will further examine predictors of children’s improvement, and results will be discussed in terms of understanding individual differences in the development of increasingly sophisticated addition strategies.

Authors

• Mary DePascale, Boston College
  Presenting Author

• Susanne M. Jaeggi, University of California, Irvine
  Non-Presenting Author

• Geetha B. Ramani, University of Maryland - College Park
  Non-Presenting Author