Understanding arithmetic concepts: The role of domain-specific and domain-general skills

A large body of research has identified cognitive skills associated with overall mathematics achievement, focusing primarily on identifying associates of procedural skills. Conceptual understanding, however, has received less attention, despite its importance for the development of mathematics profi...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:PloS one 2018-09, Vol.13 (9), p.e0201724-e0201724
Main Authors: Gilmore, Camilla, Clayton, Sarah, Cragg, Lucy, McKeaveney, Clare, Simms, Victoria, Johnson, Samantha
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Analysis
Arithmetic
Biology and Life Sciences
Child
Children
Children & youth
Cognition & reasoning
Cognition - physiology
Cognitive ability
Cognitive science
Concept formation
Female
Health sciences
Humans
Knowledge
Learning - physiology
Male
Mathematical ability
Mathematical analysis
Mathematics
Mathematics - education
Memory
People and Places
Physical Sciences
Preschool education
Principles
Psychology
Skill learning
Skills
Social Sciences
Test Taking Skills
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Summary:A large body of research has identified cognitive skills associated with overall mathematics achievement, focusing primarily on identifying associates of procedural skills. Conceptual understanding, however, has received less attention, despite its importance for the development of mathematics proficiency. Consequently, we know little about the quantitative and domain-general skills associated with conceptual understanding. Here we investigated 8-10-year-old children's conceptual understanding of arithmetic, as well as a wide range of basic quantitative skills, numerical representations and domain-general skills. We found that conceptual understanding was most strongly associated with performance on a number line task. This relationship was not explained by the use of particular strategies on the number line task, and may instead reflect children's knowledge of the structure of the number system. Understanding the skills involved in conceptual learning is important to support efforts by educators to improve children's conceptual understanding of mathematics.
ISSN:1932-6203
1932-6203
DOI:10.1371/journal.pone.0201724