Associations between Peer Effect and Chinese Children’s Mathematical Ability: Moderated by Executive Function

• In Event: Executive Function in the Preschool Classroom: Understanding the Peers’ Influence and Group-based EF Assessments

Abstract

According to statistics in 2019, 83.4% 3-6 years old children in China attend kindergartens, which generally last full day and organize children into classes with a stable peer group. Therefore, young children have more opportunities to play and learn with the peers. Recent studies have revealed the effects of peer composition including ethnicity, socio-economic status, age, and ability on learning and development of young children. Since the social culture, population, and policies on the residence and early childhood education might influence the features of the peer group, there is still need for research about whether and in what conditions peer group impacts young children’s math ability in the context of Chinese kindergartens.
A sample of 309 children was randomly selected from 29 classes in 17 kindergartens in three cities, Beijing, Shantou, and Chengdu. The family socio-economic status was reported by parents using questionnaire, which comprises of three aspects of parents’ occupation, education level and monthly household income. Children’s math ability and executive function were examined by one-to-one tests. The individual child’s math ability was measured using the Child Math Assessment. The executive function was assessed from three dimensions of working memory, inhibitory control and cognitive transformation. The peer math ability was represented by the average of individual math score of the same class. The peer social economic status was the average of SES scores all children within same class. We used a hierarchical linear model to analyze the relationship between peer effects and individual’s math ability using HLM6.0.
The results showed that after controlling factors at kindergarten, class, teacher, and individual child levels, peer mathematical ability was significantly and positively associated with individual children's mathematical ability (β = .829, p < .001), while peers’ socio-economic status did not (β = .012, p >.05). Individual’s executive function moderated the links between peer mathematical ability and individual children's mathematical ability (β = .884, p < .01). For children whose executive function was at the middle and low level, peer mathematical ability had a stronger association with individual children's mathematical ability (β = .827, p < .001).
The findings of the present study imply that kindergarten enrollment should be open to children across different social status, instead of targeting exclusively at advantaged or disadvantaged children. Teachers and parents need to pay attention to developing young children’s executive functions to effectively form peer groups. Further, in order to provide a fair educational opportunity for all children, kindergartens should form peer groups with various skill levels and allow children learn from each other.

Authors

• Pan Yue-Juan, Beijing Normal University
  Presenting Author

• Liu Shan-Shan, zhengzhou Art infant normal school
  Non-Presenting Author