Children’s arithmetic strategy use trajectories: Exploring the roles of executive functions and sociodemographic characteristics

Although young children often use counting to solve arithmetic problems, over time they move toward more efficient strategies such as direct retrieval and decomposition. Strategy selection has longitudinal associations with children’s math achievement. Existing research indicates that children’s executive functions (EFs) support inhibiting unnecessary strategies and adaptively switching between strategies. Moreover, research has documented gender differences in strategy use, but prior literature does not account for the contributions of socioeconomic factors in children’s strategy trajectories. The current study examined the unique roles of preschoolers’ EFs, gender, household income, and maternal education for the trajectories of strategy use on arithmetic problems across early elementary school. Preschoolers’ EFs were assessed at 5 years 3 months of age, and children completed addition and subtraction problems in first, second, and third grades. Children’s strategies were categorized as retrieval, counting, decomposition, and sign flipping. Results indicated that children with higher EFs were more likely to use retrieval and sign flipping in first grade compared with children with lower EFs, and this advantage was maintained into third grade. Boys used more retrieval and decomposition, whereas girls used more counting strategies, in first grade, and this pattern held longitudinally. Finally, children whose mothers had more years of education were likely to use decomposition and sign flipping in first grade, with an advantage through third grade. Overall, the current study sheds light on how cognitive and sociodemographic factors differentially contribute to children’s accurate strategy use, with implications for how to best target early interventions to support children’s math achievement.