{"title":"How does activity context relate to parents’ responses to preschoolers’ errors and correct math statements?","authors":"Can Çarkoğlu, Sarah H. Eason","doi":"10.1016/j.jecp.2024.106191","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jecp.2024.106191","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Research shows that parent–child math activities in the home positively relate to children’s math learning. Although there is evidence suggesting that the nature of parent guidance during these interactions is important for children’s math learning, it is unclear how parents respond to preschoolers’ errors and correct math statements and whether responses vary across activity contexts. We examined parents’ responses to errors and correct statements during structured math activities with 49 dyads of parents and 4- and 5-year-olds. Dyads were assigned to either an Informal Learning condition (<em>n</em> = 25) or a Formal Learning condition (<em>n</em> = 24). We identified instances where children responded correctly or incorrectly to math prompts and coded parents’ feedback based on the extent to which it supported children’s autonomy and learning. Overall, parents most frequently responded in ways that encouraged children’s continued math engagement and thinking (elaborative guidance). However, multiple regression analyses revealed that parents were more likely to not respond to errors during informal learning than during formal learning, and parents were more likely to give the correct answer following an error during formal learning compared with during informal learning. Parents in both conditions were equally likely to offer elaborative support following errors. Moreover, parents did not differ in their responses following children’s correct statements across conditions. These findings suggest, irrespective of activity context, that parents can realize opportunities to effectively support preschoolers’ math learning. Yet, given differences in parents’ responses to errors, the findings have implications as to how we can tailor recommendations to promote high-quality parent–child math interactions.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48391,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Experimental Child Psychology","volume":"253 ","pages":"Article 106191"},"PeriodicalIF":1.8,"publicationDate":"2025-01-31","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143075665","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Affordances of fractions and decimals for arithmetic among middle school students in the United States and China","authors":"Qiushan Liu , Yunqi Wang , David W. Braithwaite","doi":"10.1016/j.jecp.2024.106187","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jecp.2024.106187","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Recent research by <span><span>Liu and Braithwaite (2023</span></span>; Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, Vol. 49, pp. 1459–1470) revealed differential affordances of fractions and decimals for arithmetic. Specifically, adults preferred to solve addition problems in decimal form rather than fraction form and preferred to solve multiplication problems in fraction form rather than decimal form. The current study tested whether similar preferences would appear among middle school children in the United States (N = 84) and China (N = 88) and whether analogous patterns would appear in children’s calculation performance. Like adults in Liu and Braithwaite’s study, children in both countries preferred decimals more for addition and preferred fractions more for multiplication. Furthermore, calculation accuracy was relatively higher with decimals for addition and with fractions for multiplication, and calculation was perceived to be relatively less effortful with decimals for addition and with fractions for multiplication. We consider both conceptual and procedural explanations for the findings, based respectively on semantic alignment theory and strategy choice theory, and conclude that a procedural perspective offers the more complete and parsimonious explanation. Educational implications of the findings are discussed.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48391,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Experimental Child Psychology","volume":"253 ","pages":"Article 106187"},"PeriodicalIF":1.8,"publicationDate":"2025-01-31","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143075631","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Jing Liang , Song-Li Li , Wei Ji , Jing-Xuan Ran , Wen-Jing Yan
{"title":"Emotional elements matter: Stories about a protagonist’s guilt over lying promote honesty in early elementary school children but not in preschool children","authors":"Jing Liang , Song-Li Li , Wei Ji , Jing-Xuan Ran , Wen-Jing Yan","doi":"10.1016/j.jecp.2024.106193","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jecp.2024.106193","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Previous research has documented the effectiveness of positive moral stories in promoting children’s honesty; however, the impact of negative moral stories, particularly those incorporating different emotional elements, remains underexplored. The current studies investigated how guilt- and sadness-inducing narratives in moral stories influence children’s honesty. In Study 1, we randomly assigned 166 children (aged 6–7 years) to one of four conditions: control (neutral story), negative moral story, negative moral story with sadness, or negative moral story with guilt. Using a mathematics test paradigm in which children self-reported their performance, we found that whereas a simple negative moral story did not significantly affect honesty compared with control (40.54% vs. 48.84%), incorporating guilt significantly increased honest behavior (74.42%). The negative story with sadness showed an intermediate effect (66.67%). In Study 2, we employed a card-guessing game with 85 younger children (aged 3–6 years) to test the effectiveness of guilt-inducing narratives given the higher potential to promote honesty in Study 1. The results revealed no significant difference in honest behavior between the guilt-inducing story and control conditions (38.71% vs. 50% honest reporting among peekers). The age-dependent pattern propounds that the effectiveness of guilt-based moral stories emerges during early elementary school, coinciding with children’s understanding of complex moral emotions. The findings highlight the role of guilt and sadness in promoting ethical behavior among early elementary school children and have significant implications for moral education strategies.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48391,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Experimental Child Psychology","volume":"253 ","pages":"Article 106193"},"PeriodicalIF":1.8,"publicationDate":"2025-01-31","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143075659","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Utku Beyazıt , Büşra Kurtoğlu Karataş , Aynur Bütün Ayhan
{"title":"Cognitive flexibility and mindfulness in middle childhood: The serial multiple mediation of theory of mind","authors":"Utku Beyazıt , Büşra Kurtoğlu Karataş , Aynur Bütün Ayhan","doi":"10.1016/j.jecp.2024.106192","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jecp.2024.106192","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>The aim of this study was to examine the mediating role of theory of mind (ToM) skills in the relationship between cognitive flexibility and mindfulness in middle childhood. The study group comprised 282 children aged 9 to 11 years who were attending two separate primary schools in Ankara, Türkiye. The children were administered a battery of instruments consisting of self-report measures of cognitive flexibility and mindfulness in addition to a story-based assessment of ToM. To test the hypotheses of the study, a serial multiple mediation model was employed. The findings of the study indicated that cognitive flexibility had a positive and significant impact on mindfulness. Although the specific single mediating impact of the first-order false belief task (ToM1) on the relationship between cognitive flexibility and mindfulness was not significant, the impacts of the second-order false belief task (ToM2) and the faux pas task (ToM3) were found to be significant. Furthermore, the findings indicated that the ToM1, ToM2, and ToM3 skills collectively exerted a serial multiple mediating impact on the relationship between cognitive flexibility and mindfulness. The results are significant in elucidating the cognitive and emotional developmental processes in the middle childhood context, and they underscore the importance of strategies to improve children’s cognitive flexibility and ToM skills in educational and psychological interventions.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48391,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Experimental Child Psychology","volume":"253 ","pages":"Article 106192"},"PeriodicalIF":1.8,"publicationDate":"2025-01-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143075654","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Is counting a bad idea? Complex relations among children’s fraction knowledge, eye movements, and performance in visual fraction comparisons","authors":"Sabrina Schwarzmeier, Andreas Obersteiner","doi":"10.1016/j.jecp.2024.106181","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jecp.2024.106181","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Understanding fraction magnitudes is crucial for mathematical development but is challenging for many children. Visualizations, such as tape diagrams, are thought to leverage children’s early proportional reasoning skills. However, depending on children’s prior knowledge, these visualizations may encourage various strategies. Children with lower fraction knowledge might rely on counting, leading to natural number bias and low performance, whereas those with higher knowledge might rely on more efficient strategies based on magnitude. This study explores the relationship between students’ general fraction knowledge and their ability to visually compare fraction magnitudes represented with tape diagrams. A total of 67 children completed a fraction knowledge test and a set of comparison tasks with discretized and continuous tape diagrams while their eye movements, accuracy, and response times were recorded. Cluster analysis identified three groups. The first group, high-achieving and applying magnitude-based strategies, showed high accuracy and short response times, indicating efficiency. A second high-achieving group frequently used counting strategies, which was unexpected. This group achieved the highest accuracy but the longest response times, indicating less efficiency. The third group, low-achieving and rarely using counting strategies, had the lowest accuracy and short response times. These students tended to compare absolute sizes rather than relative sizes (i.e., showing a size bias). None of the groups exhibited a natural number bias. The study suggests that counting, although inefficient, does not necessarily lead to bias or low performance. Instead, biased reasoning with fraction visualizations can originate from reliance on absolute sizes.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48391,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Experimental Child Psychology","volume":"252 ","pages":"Article 106181"},"PeriodicalIF":1.8,"publicationDate":"2025-01-23","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143042153","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Samantha Zakrzewski , Edward Merrill , Yingying Yang
{"title":"Can gamification improve children’s performance in mental rotation?","authors":"Samantha Zakrzewski , Edward Merrill , Yingying Yang","doi":"10.1016/j.jecp.2024.106169","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jecp.2024.106169","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>A common obstacle in cognitive development research is that many cognitive tasks can be long, repetitive, and hence seemingly boring for children. The current study examined whether incorporating gamification elements could make a classic mental rotation task more child-friendly and engaging for young children. A total of 100 children aged 6 to 9 years participated in two mental rotation tasks, where one included gamification elements and the other did not. Results showed that gamification indeed improved performance on the task. Furthermore, this effect did not vary as a function of age, gender, or task difficulty. However, it interacted with testing order, such that those children who received the baseline condition first improved their performance in the gamification condition later on, whereas those children who received the gamification condition first were able to maintain a good performance in the baseline condition later on. Lastly, although some personality factors (e.g., Agreeableness, Openness to Experience) correlated with the overall performance, they did not predict the gamification effects. Therefore, our results have practical implications for using gamification in designing cognitively demanding tasks for children. Theoretically, they help to further understand how gamification affects cognition.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48391,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Experimental Child Psychology","volume":"252 ","pages":"Article 106169"},"PeriodicalIF":1.8,"publicationDate":"2025-01-22","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143030184","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Alexa Ellis , Connor D. O’Rear , Jimena Cosso , David J. Purpura
{"title":"Examining the factor structure of the home learning environment","authors":"Alexa Ellis , Connor D. O’Rear , Jimena Cosso , David J. Purpura","doi":"10.1016/j.jecp.2024.106186","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jecp.2024.106186","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>The home learning environment (HLE) is an important context for fostering early development. Literature supports four subdomains of the HLE: home literacy, numeracy, executive function, and science environments. The current study examined the factor structure of the HLE with all four domain-specific established scales. Participants (<em>N</em> = 913) were caregivers (primarily White; 78.1%) of children aged 2 to 6 years (<em>M</em> = 4.28 years, <em>SD</em> = 1.25). Data were collected from an online platform. Results suggested that the most appropriate structure was a seven-factor model (code-based and oral language literacy, informal and formal numeracy, core and practice science, and executive function). Caregivers reported engaging in literacy practices the most and engaging in science and numeracy activities the least. This study demonstrates that the HLE is a multidimensional structure.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48391,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Experimental Child Psychology","volume":"252 ","pages":"Article 106186"},"PeriodicalIF":1.8,"publicationDate":"2025-01-21","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143025331","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
C. Tomasetto , M.C. Passolunghi , C. De Vita , V. Guardabassi , K. Morsanyi
{"title":"Parental mathematics anxiety is related to children’s mathematical development in preschool and the first school years","authors":"C. Tomasetto , M.C. Passolunghi , C. De Vita , V. Guardabassi , K. Morsanyi","doi":"10.1016/j.jecp.2024.106185","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jecp.2024.106185","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Math anxiety is a well-known predictor of mathematics skills, with its effects ranging from reducing performance in high-stakes tests to interfering with learning novel mathematics contents. Although the intergenerational transmission of generalized anxiety is well-documented, research on the associations between parents’ math anxiety and children’s math anxiety and mathematics outcomes is still limited. In this longitudinal study (<em>N</em> = 126), we investigated the associations between parents’ math anxiety (as measured when children were 3 years of age) and children’s math anxiety and math skills at 8 years of age. The development of children’s mathematics skills from 3 to 8 years was also investigated. Results of longitudinal structural equation models revealed that parents’ math anxiety was associated with children’s mathematics skills in the preschool years even after controlling for parental education. In turn, children’s mathematics skills in the preschool years were associated both with children’s mathematics skills and their mathematics anxiety at age 8. In addition, there was an indirect link between parents’ math anxiety, as measured when their children were age 3, and children’s mathematics skills at age 8, which was mediated by children’s early mathematics skills in the preschool years. In sum, these findings suggest that although parents’ math anxiety is not directly related to the development of math anxiety in their children, it may be negatively related to the development of children’s early mathematical skills, which are strong predictors not only of academic achievement but also of success and well-being in adulthood.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48391,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Experimental Child Psychology","volume":"252 ","pages":"Article 106185"},"PeriodicalIF":1.8,"publicationDate":"2025-01-21","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143025333","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Kristy L. Armitage, Chantal Li, Shu Lin Ng, Jonathan Redshaw
{"title":"The development of social offloading","authors":"Kristy L. Armitage, Chantal Li, Shu Lin Ng, Jonathan Redshaw","doi":"10.1016/j.jecp.2024.106183","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jecp.2024.106183","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Across two experiments, we explored the conditions under which 4- to 11-year-old children (<em>N</em> = 138) were more likely to seek social cognitive helpers and whether they preferentially relied on help from those that had previously shown proficiency in a relevant cognitive context. Children completed a memory task with varying levels of difficulty, after which they were introduced to two characters that exhibited either a high memory ability (task-relevant) or a high motor skill ability (task-irrelevant) in a distinct context. Children then completed the memory task a second time with the option to choose one of the two characters to assist them. From 6 years of age, children preferentially offloaded memory demand onto the character that had previously demonstrated a high memory ability and were also more likely to ask for help on difficult trials compared with easy trials. Our results also indicated potential differences in factors influencing children’s social and nonsocial cognitive offloading decisions.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48391,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Experimental Child Psychology","volume":"252 ","pages":"Article 106183"},"PeriodicalIF":1.8,"publicationDate":"2025-01-21","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143025334","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Carlos R. Benítez-Barrera , Kathleen Denicola-Prechtl , Stephanie Castro , Mandy J. Maguire
{"title":"A lot of noise about nothing? Speech-to-noise ratios rather than noise predict language outcomes in preschoolers","authors":"Carlos R. Benítez-Barrera , Kathleen Denicola-Prechtl , Stephanie Castro , Mandy J. Maguire","doi":"10.1016/j.jecp.2024.106173","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jecp.2024.106173","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>It has been proposed that a childhood in a noisy household might lead to poor language skills and slow development of language areas of the brain. Notably, a direct link between noisy households and language development has not been confirmed. Households might have high levels of noise for a range of reasons, including situational (near a large road intersection or airport), family (large families), and cultural (differences in beliefs surrounding noise in the home, including media use). We argue that within the range of safety, noise itself is not problematic to language development if language is made accessible to children. To test this hypothesis, we used LENA (Language Enviromental Analysis) devices to record 3- to 5-year-old children’s home environments. All children were living in Spanish-dominant households. Language skills were assessed in Spanish and English. In addition to overall noise levels in the home, we calculated speech-to-noise ratios as an index of access to speech in real-world conditions. There was no relationship between noise in the home and language outcomes. Instead, speech-to-noise ratio explained a significant proportion of variability in language outcomes. The results indicate that enhancing access to language, such as by speaking loudly or getting close to the child, plays a significant role in children’s language development outcomes rather than noise per se.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48391,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Experimental Child Psychology","volume":"252 ","pages":"Article 106173"},"PeriodicalIF":1.8,"publicationDate":"2025-01-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143014311","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}