Poster #28 - Investigating Socio-Economic, Cognitive, and Motivational Factors Associated with Parental Math Talk

• In Event: Poster Session 19

Abstract

Given the significance of early math input, it is essential to identify factors that could impact parental math talk. Investigators found that the quantity and quality of parental math talk are associated with parents’ income and education (e.g., Casey et al., 2020; Dearing et al., 2022), with parents from higher SES providing more math talk at home. Besides, parental beliefs about math value, as well as their own math efficacy, impact their interaction with children (Berkowitz et al., 2021; Vasilyeva et al., 2018; Zippert & Rittle- Johnson, 2020). Lastly, researchers suggested that spontaneous focus on numerosity (SFON), which refers to one’s ability to spontaneously recognize and focus on numerical aspects of the environment (Hannula & Lehtinen, 2005), may explain variability in math talk.


Even though prior investigations examined specific predictors of parental math input, very few studies have taken a comprehensive approach, simultaneously investigating pathways from socioeconomic, cognitive, and motivational factors to parental math input. Current study will take this approach. Besides, current study will further include parental occupation (STEM vs. non-STEM) as part of the SES characteristics. With respect to motivational factors, the proposed study will also include an online measure (adapted from Ganley & Vasilveya, 2014) that provide information about state anxiety during math problem-solving. With respect to cognitive factors, parents will be offered a SFON and a math problem-solving task rather than relying on their self-reports as in prior studies. Finally, while Thippana et al. (2020) examined activity context as a factor affecting parental math talk, the proposed study will extend the existing literature by investigating the role of multiple parental factors in three different interactional contexts.


Families with children aged 4 -6 years (N=120, half - low SES, half - high SES) will be recruited in mainland China. There will be 2 data gathering sessions, about 2 weeks apart. In Session 1, parents will not be informed about the math focus of the study. They will be asked to play with children using provided materials (party preparation game with food items) for 10 minutes (Informal-Implicit Context). After that, parents will be asked to complete surveys/tasks for above-mentioned three factors. In Session 2, parents will be asked to play the same game as before but explicitly encouraged to talk about numerical aspects during the play (Informal-Explicit Context). Next, parents will be given another 10 minutes and asked to teach children how to solve a simple computational task (single-digit addition) (Formal Context).


Interactions from both sessions will be videotaped, coded, and analyzed using Structural Equation Modeling (SEM). Latent variables will be computed for three factors and path analysis will be used to investigate the relationship between these factors and parental math input in different interactional contexts (i.e., different types of activities). Figure 1. Shows the two hypothesized models. As shown in the figures, the socio-economic factor (i.e., family SES) might serve either as a distal or proximal predictor, whereas the activity type may moderate the relation between various factors and the quantity and quality of parental math input.

Authors

• Linxi Lu, Boston College
  Presenting Author

• Marina Vasilyeva