Search results for "Numeracy"
showing 10 items of 35 documents
Basic numeracy in children with specific language impairment: heterogeneity and connections to language.
2006
Purpose This study examined basic numerical skills in children with specific language impairment (SLI) and how well linguistic factors explain the variance in these children’s number skills. Method The performance of children with SLI ( n = 29) was compared with that of typically developing children along a continuum ranging from preschool to 3rd grade ( n = 20, 47, 40, and 33). This facilitated both linguistic and educational age comparisons. To study number skills within the SLI group more closely, this group was divided into subgroups on the basis of their performance in verbal and nonverbal numerical skills. The performance of the different SLI subgroups on the linguistic and nonverbal…
A pilot study of the effects of RightStart instruction on early numeracy skills of children with specific language impairment
2013
This pilot study investigated the effects of an early numeracy program, RightStart Mathematics (RS), on Finnish kindergartners with specific language impairment (SLI). The study applied a pre-test-instruction-post-test design. The children with SLI (n=9, Mage=82.11 months) received RS instruction two to three times a week for 40 min over seven months, which replaced their business-as-usual mathematics instruction. Mathematical skill development among children with SLI was examined at the individual and group levels, and compared to the performance of normal language-achieving age peers (n=32, Mage=74.16 months) who received business-as-usual kindergarten mathematics instruction. The childre…
Linguistic and spatial skills predict early arithmetic development via counting sequence knowledge
2013
Utilizing a longitudinal sample of Finnish children (ages 6-10), two studies examined how early linguistic (spoken vs. written) and spatial skills predict later development of arithmetic, and whether counting sequence knowledge mediates these associations. In Study 1 (N = 1,880), letter knowledge and spatial visualization, measured in kindergarten, predicted the level of arithmetic in first grade, and later growth through third grade. Study 2 (n = 378) further showed that these associations were mediated by counting sequence knowledge measured in first grade. These studies add to the literature by demonstrating the importance of written language for arithmetic development. The findings are …
Aerobic fitness mediates the intervention effects of a school-based physical activity intervention on academic performance. The school in Motion stud…
2021
Highlights • Physical activity is associated with increased aerobic fitness and academic performance. • Little is known on mechanism of physical activity effects on academic performance. • We performed a cluster randomized controlled trial. • Aerobic fitness mediated the intervention effect on academic performance. • Activity increasing aerobic fitness is a strategy to improve academic performance.
Employment Effects of Skills Around the World: Evidence from PIAAC
2017
Making use of an international survey that directly assesses participants’ cognitive skills, I study the effect of skills on workers’ employment in 32 countries. On average, a one-standard-deviation increase in numeracy skills is associated with a 7.6 percentage points increase in the probability of being employed. Controlling for years spent in education, the employment effect of numeracy skills falls to 4.8 percentage points. Numeracy skills account for 30 percent of the 2.7 percentage points employment effect that is associated with years of education. There is considerable heterogeneity across both subgroups and countries.
Employment effects of skills around the world: Evidence from the PIAAC
2020
Using an international survey that directly assesses the cognitive skills of participants, the author studies the effect of skills on employment in 32 countries. On average, a 1 standard deviation increase in numeracy is associated with an 8.4 percentage point increase in the probability of being employed, reducing the probability of being out of the labour force and unemployed by 6.4 and 2.1 percentage points, respectively. After controlling for numeracy, the estimated employment effect of years in education falls by one third, from 2.7 to 1.8 percentage points. Notably, the employment effect of skills is more pronounced in countries with higher unemployment.
Reliability and validity evidence of the early numeracy test for identifying children at risk for mathematical learning difficulties
2020
Abstract This study investigated reliability and validity evidence regarding the Early Numeracy test (EN-test) in a sample of 1139 Swedish-speaking children (587 girls) in kindergarten (n = 361), first grade (n = 321), and second grade (n = 457). Structural validity evidence was established through confirmatory factor analysis (CFA), which showed that a four-factor model fit the data significantly better than a one-factor or two-factor model. The known-group and cross-cultural validity were established through multigroup CFAs, finding that the four-factor model fit the gender, age and language groups equally well. Internal consistency for the test and sub-skills varied from good to excellen…
Skills, Job Mobility and Productive Efficiency
2017
Making use of a survey that directly assesses the participants’ cognitive skills, I study the relation between skills and job mobility in a large international comparison of 32 countries. Motivated by the canonical on-the-job search model, I measure job mobility by the ratio of the job-finding rate on the job to the transition rate into unemployment. A higher ratio of these rates induces, ceteris paribus, first-order stochastic dominance in the distribution of workers over jobs, indicating a more efficient allocation of resources across firms. On average across the 32 countries, a one-standard-deviation increase in numeracy skills is estimated to double the ratio of the job-finding rate on …
Mathematical skills in undergraduate students. A ten-year survey of a Plant Physiology course
2012
In the health and life sciences, as well as in other scientific disciplines, problem solving depends on mathematical skills. However, significant deficiencies are commonly found in this regard in undergraduate students. In an attempt to understand the underlying causes and to improve students' performance, this paper reports a ten-year survey (2000-2010) on mathematical skills of undergraduate Spanish students enrolled in a Plant Physiology course, based on data from tests performed throughout this time period. The results show that the percentage of correct answers decreases for questions requiring some mathematical skills, particularly those needing some calculations. Interestingly, perce…
Mathematical literacy in Plant Physiology undergraduates: results of interventions aimed at improving students' performance
2013
The importance of mathematical literacy in any scientific career is widely recognized. However, various studies report lack of numeracy and mathematical literacy in students from various countries. In the present work we present a detailed study of the mathematical literacy of Spanish undergraduate students of Biology enrolled in a Plant Physiology course. We have performed individual analyses of results obtained during the period 2000-2011, for questions in the examinations requiring and not requiring mathematical skills. Additionally, we present the outcome of two interventions introduced with the aim of helping students improve their prospects for success in the course. Our results confi…