Institute of Cognitive Science and Assessment (COSA), Department of Behavioural and Cognitive Sciences (DBCS), Faculty of Humanities, Education and Social Sciences (FHSE), University of Luxembourg, Luxembourg.
Institute of Cognitive Science and Assessment (COSA), Department of Behavioural and Cognitive Sciences (DBCS), Faculty of Humanities, Education and Social Sciences (FHSE), University of Luxembourg, Luxembourg.
Acta Psychol (Amst). 2021 Nov;221:103456. doi: 10.1016/j.actpsy.2021.103456. Epub 2021 Dec 4.
Achievement in mathematics has been shown to partially depend on verbal skills. In multilingual educational settings, varying language proficiencies might therefore contribute to differences in mathematics achievement. We explored the relationship between mathematics achievement and language competency in terms of home language and instruction language proficiency in the highly multilingual society of Luxembourg. We focussed on third graders' linguistic and mathematical achievement and used data from the national school monitoring program from two consecutive years to assess the influence of children's language profiles on reading comprehension in German (the instruction language) and mathematics performance. Results were similar for both cohorts. Regression analysis indicated that German reading comprehension was a significant predictor of mathematics achievement when accounting for both home language group and socioeconomic status. Moreover, mediation analysis showed that lower mathematics achievement of students with a home language that is very different from the instruction language relative to the Luxembourgish reference group were significantly mediated by achievement in German reading comprehension. These findings show that differences in mathematics achievement between speakers of a home language that is similar to the instruction language and speakers of distant home languages can be explained by their underachievement in reading comprehension in the instruction language. Possible explanations for varying performance patterns between language groups and solutions are being discussed.
数学成绩的提高部分取决于语言技能。在多语言教育环境中，不同的语言能力可能会导致数学成绩的差异。我们在卢森堡这个高度多语言的社会中，探讨了家庭语言和教学语言熟练程度对数学成绩的影响。我们关注的是三年级学生的语言和数学成绩，使用来自连续两年国家学校监测计划的数据，评估儿童语言特征对德语（教学语言）阅读理解和数学表现的影响。两个队列的结果相似。回归分析表明，在考虑家庭语言群体和社会经济地位后，德语阅读理解是数学成绩的一个重要预测因素。此外，中介分析表明，与卢森堡语参考组相比，母语与教学语言差异很大的学生的数学成绩较低，这一差异主要由德语阅读理解成绩的差异来解释。这些发现表明，母语与教学语言相似的学生和母语与教学语言差异较大的学生之间的数学成绩差异可以用他们在教学语言中的阅读理解成绩较差来解释。我们正在讨论不同语言群体之间表现模式差异的可能解释和解决方案。
