Borriello Giulia A, Grenell Amanda, Vest Nicholas A, Moore Kyler, Fyfe Emily R
Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences, Indiana University, Bloomington, Indiana, USA.
Department of Psychology, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, Wisconsin, USA.
Child Dev. 2023 Mar;94(2):e103-e118. doi: 10.1111/cdev.13882. Epub 2022 Dec 22.
This study examined repeating and growing pattern knowledge and their associations with procedural and conceptual arithmetic knowledge in a sample of U.S. children (N = 185; M = 79.5 months; 55% female; 88% White) and adults (N = 93; M = 19.5 years; 62% female; 66% White) from 2019 to 2020. Three key findings emerged: (1) repeating pattern tasks were easier than growing pattern tasks, (2) repeating pattern knowledge robustly predicted procedural calculation skills over and above growing pattern knowledge and covariates, and (3) growing pattern knowledge modestly predicted procedural and conceptual math outcomes over and above repeating pattern knowledge and covariates. We expand existing theoretical models to incorporate these specific links and discuss implications for supporting math knowledge.
