Search results for "Thinking skills"
showing 6 items of 26 documents
Identifying Finnish Children’s Impulsivity Trajectories From Kindergarten to Grade 4: Associations With Academic and Socioemotional Development
2015
Research Findings: The purpose of this study was to identify the developmental trajectories of impulsive behavior among 378 Finnish children who were followed from kindergarten to fourth grade. In addition to ratings of children’s impulsivity, the analyses included measures of motivation, cognitive skills, socio-emotional adjustment, and teacher–student relationship. Four latent groups were identified that differed in the level and change of the children’s impulsive behavior across time: first, a group with low impulsivity; second, a group with decreasing impulsivity; third, a group with moderate impulsivity; and, fourth, a small group with a contradictory trajectory showing an upward trend…
Teaching Early Mathematical Skills to 3- to 7-Year-Old Children — Differences Related to Mathematical Skill Category, Children’s Age Group and Teache…
2022
Abstract This study explored teaching early mathematical skills to 3- to 7-year-old children in early childhood education and care (ECEC) and pre-primary education. Teachers in ECEC (N = 206) answered a web survey. The first aim was to determine whether teaching frequency or pedagogical awareness of teaching early mathematical skills varied according to the category of skills (numerical skills, spatial thinking skills and mathematical thinking and reasoning skills) and whether children’s age group moderated these differences. The second aim was to explore to what extent teacher-related characteristics and children’s age group explained variations in teaching frequency concerning early mathe…
Problematising the equivalence of the test results of performance-based critical thinking tests for undergraduate students
2015
Abstract This article compares the test results of two different performance-based assessments of critical thinking: a constructed-response task from the Collegiate Learning Assessment (CLA) and a multiple-choice questionnaire (MCQ). These tests ostensibly measure the same critical thinking skills, such as analysing, interpreting and evaluating information and problem solving. The study utilised a mixed-method approach to explore the differences in students’ ( n = 330) test scores. The results showed that the correspondence between the CLA and the MCQ was fully comparable in 45.5% of the students’ test performances. Ten percent of the students had completely opposite test results. Explanat…
Adapting Formal Logic for Everyday Mathematics
2022
Although logic is considered central to mathematics and computer science, there is evidence that teaching logic has not been a great success. We identify three issues where what is typically taught conflicts with what is needed by those who are supposed to apply logic. First, what is taught about the notion of implication often disagrees with human intuition. We argue that in some cases human intuition is wrong, and in some others teaching is to blame. Second, the formal concepts of logical consequence, logical equivalence and tautology are not the similar concepts that everyday mathematicians and computer scientists need. The difference is small enough to go unnoticed but big enough to cau…
Automated Checking of Flexible Mathematical Reasoning in the Case of Systems of (In)Equations and the Absolute Value Operator
2021
We present an approach and a tool for automatically providing feedback on solutions that involve complicated reasoning patterns. Currently the tool supports linear systems of equations and inequations that may also contain the absolute value operator and a restricted form of rational functions. This suffices for designing problems that are laborious to solve with standard mechanical procedures, but much easier using short-cuts that students may find by creative thinking. Earlier research has found that struggling with important mathematics promotes conceptual development. Our goal is to encourage students to such struggling. A crucial feature is to give them great freedom to choose the path…
The development of Early Mathematical Skills – A Theoretical Framework for a Holistic Model
2019
This article presents a theoretical framework for a holistic model of the development of early mathematical skills in early childhood education. The first aim of this study was to conduct a comprehensive international review of the literature to explore early mathematical skills categories. The literature review yielded three early mathematical skills categories, namely (1) numerical skills, (2) spatial thinking skills and (3) mathematical thinking and reasoning skills. Previous studies have shown that several mathematical skills develop gradually and simultaneously in early ages and that these skills areas are interconnected in mathematical skills learning. Accordingly, the second aim of t…