DePascale Mary, Jaeggi Susanne M, Ramani Geetha B
Department of Human Development and Quantitative Methodology, University of Maryland, College Park, College Park, United States.
School of Education, University of California, Irvine, Irvine, United States.
Front Psychol. 2023 Jan 11;13:1027431. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2022.1027431. eCollection 2022.
Young children vary widely in their levels of math knowledge, their abilities to solve math problems, and the strategies they use to solve math problems. As much of later math builds on children's early understanding of basic math facts and problem-solving strategies, understanding influences on children's early problem solving is important. Few studies, however, have examined the home environment in relation to children's strategy use during arithmetic problems. We examined how both structural characteristics of children's home environments, such as socioeconomic status (SES), as well as the learning environment, such as engagement in math and literacy activities at home, related to their use of problem-solving strategies for numerical addition problems. Kindergarten children from diverse backgrounds completed a measure of addition problem solving and strategy use, including simple and complex numerical problems. Strategies were coded based on a combination of accuracy and strategy sophistication, with higher scores indicating problems solved correctly with more sophisticated strategies. Parents completed a home activities questionnaire, reporting the frequency with which they and their child had engaged in math and literacy activities at home over the past month. An exploratory factor analysis identified three components of the home activities - a basic activities factor, an advanced math activities factor, and a literacy activities factor. Findings indicated that SES related to children's strategy sophistication, and frequency of engaging in advanced math and literacy activities at home predicted strategy sophistication, however, engaging in activities at home did not moderate the relations between SES and strategy sophistication. This suggests that family engagement in activities at home may promote early arithmetic skills, and that the role of home environmental characteristics should be considered in children's arithmetic strategy use and performance over development.
幼儿在数学知识水平、解决数学问题的能力以及解决数学问题所采用的策略方面存在很大差异。由于后期的许多数学知识都建立在儿童对基本数学事实和解题策略的早期理解之上，因此了解影响儿童早期问题解决的因素很重要。然而，很少有研究探讨家庭环境与儿童在算术问题中策略使用之间的关系。我们研究了儿童家庭环境的结构特征（如社会经济地位）以及学习环境（如在家中参与数学和读写活动的情况）如何与他们在数字加法问题中使用解题策略相关。来自不同背景的幼儿园儿童完成了一项加法问题解决和策略使用的测评，包括简单和复杂的数字问题。根据准确性和策略复杂性的综合情况对策略进行编码，分数越高表明使用越复杂的策略正确解决的问题越多。家长完成了一份家庭活动问卷，报告他们和孩子在过去一个月中在家中参与数学和读写活动的频率。一项探索性因素分析确定了家庭活动的三个组成部分——基本活动因素、高等数学活动因素和读写活动因素。研究结果表明，社会经济地位与儿童的策略复杂性相关，在家中参与高等数学和读写活动的频率预测了策略复杂性，然而，在家中参与活动并没有调节社会经济地位与策略复杂性之间的关系。这表明家庭参与在家中的活动可能会促进早期算术技能的发展，并且在儿童算术策略的使用和整个发展过程中的表现方面，应考虑家庭环境特征的作用。
