Greisen Max, Hornung Caroline, Baudson Tanja G, Muller Claire, Martin Romain, Schiltz Christine
Cognitive Science and Assessment Institute, University of Luxembourg, Luxembourg, Luxembourg.
Luxembourg Centre for Educational Testing, University of Luxembourg, Luxembourg, Luxembourg.
Front Psychol. 2018 Jun 26;9:1076. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2018.01076. eCollection 2018.
While numerical skills are fundamental in modern societies, some estimated 5-7% of children suffer from mathematical learning difficulties (MLD) that need to be assessed early to ensure successful remediation. Universally employable diagnostic tools are yet lacking, as current test batteries for basic mathematics assessment are based on verbal instructions. However, prior research has shown that performance in mathematics assessment is often dependent on the testee's proficiency in the language of instruction which might lead to unfair bias in test scores. Furthermore, language-dependent assessment tools produce results that are not easily comparable across countries. Here we present results of a study that aims to develop tasks allowing to test for basic math competence without relying on verbal instructions or task content. We implemented video and animation-based task instructions on touchscreen devices that require no verbal explanation. We administered these experimental tasks to two samples of children attending the first grade of primary school. One group completed the tasks with verbal instructions while another group received video instructions showing a person successfully completing the task. We assessed task comprehension and usability aspects both directly and indirectly. Our results suggest that the non-verbal instructions were generally well understood as the absence of explicit verbal instructions did not influence task performance. Thus we found that it is possible to assess basic math competence without verbal instructions. It also appeared that in some cases a single word in a verbal instruction can lead to the failure of a task that is successfully completed with non-verbal instruction. However, special care must be taken during task design because on rare occasions non-verbal video instructions fail to convey task instructions as clearly as spoken language and thus the latter do not provide a panacea to non-verbal assessment. Nevertheless, our findings provide an encouraging proof of concept for the further development of non-verbal assessment tools for basic math competence.
虽然数字技能在现代社会中至关重要，但据估计约有5%至7%的儿童存在数学学习困难（MLD），需要尽早进行评估以确保成功补救。目前尚缺乏通用的可就业诊断工具，因为当前用于基础数学评估的测试组合基于口头指令。然而，先前的研究表明，数学评估中的表现通常取决于受测者对指令语言的熟练程度，这可能导致测试分数出现不公平的偏差。此外，依赖语言的评估工具所产生的结果在不同国家之间不易比较。在此，我们展示了一项研究的结果，该研究旨在开发无需依赖口头指令或任务内容即可测试基础数学能力的任务。我们在触摸屏设备上实现了基于视频和动画的任务指令，无需口头解释。我们将这些实验任务施测于两个小学一年级儿童样本。一组在有口头指令的情况下完成任务，而另一组则接收展示一个人成功完成任务的视频指令。我们直接和间接地评估了任务理解和可用性方面。我们的结果表明，非口头指令通常能被很好地理解，因为没有明确的口头指令并未影响任务表现。因此我们发现，无需口头指令就有可能评估基础数学能力。还似乎在某些情况下，口头指令中的一个单词可能导致一个在非口头指令下能成功完成的任务失败。然而，在任务设计过程中必须格外小心，因为在极少数情况下，非口头视频指令无法像口语那样清晰地传达任务指令，因此后者并非非口头评估的万灵药。尽管如此，我们的研究结果为基础数学能力非口头评估工具的进一步开发提供了令人鼓舞的概念验证。
