Dowker Ann, Li Anthony M
Department of Experimental Psychology, Oxford University, Oxford, United Kingdom.
Somerville College, Oxford University, Oxford, United Kingdom.
Front Psychol. 2019 Feb 5;9:2731. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2018.02731. eCollection 2018.
East Asian pupils have consistently outperformed Western pupils in international comparisons of mathematical performance at both primary and secondary school level. It has sometimes been suggested that a contributory factor is the transparent counting systems of East Asian languages, which may facilitate number representation. The present study compared 35 7-year-old second-year primary school children in Oxford, England and 40 children of similar age in Hong Kong, China on a standardized arithmetic test; on a two-digit number comparison test, including easy, misleading and reversible comparisons; and on a number line task, involving placing numbers in the appropriate position on four number lines: 1-10, 1-20, 1-100, and 1-1000. The Chinese children performed significantly better than the English children on the standardized arithmetic test. They were faster but not significantly more accurate on the Number Comparison and Number Line tasks. There were no interactions between language group and comparison type on the number comparison task, though the performance of both groups was faster on easy pairs than those where there was conflict between the relative magnitudes of the tens and the units. Similarly, there were no interactions between group and number line range, though the performance of both groups was influenced by the range of the number line. The study supports the view that counting systems affect aspects of numerical abilities, but cannot be the full explanation for international differences in mathematics performance.
在小学和中学阶段的数学成绩国际比较中，东亚学生的表现一直优于西方学生。有时有人认为，一个促成因素是东亚语言中透明的计数系统，这可能有助于数字表征。本研究比较了英国牛津的35名7岁小学二年级儿童和中国香港40名同龄儿童在标准化算术测试、两位数数字比较测试（包括简单、误导性和可逆比较）以及数字线任务（即将数字放置在1 - 10、1 - 20、1 - 100和1 - 1000四条数字线上的适当位置）中的表现。中国儿童在标准化算术测试中的表现明显优于英国儿童。在数字比较和数字线任务中，他们速度更快，但准确性提高并不显著。在数字比较任务中，语言组和比较类型之间没有交互作用，不过两组在简单数字对的表现上都比十位和个位相对大小存在冲突的数字对更快。同样，在组和数字线范围之间也没有交互作用，尽管两组的表现都受到数字线范围的影响。该研究支持这样一种观点，即计数系统会影响数字能力的某些方面，但不能完全解释数学成绩的国际差异。
