Gilligan-Lee Katie A, Fink Elian, Jerrom Lewis, Davies Megan P, Dempsey Caoimhe, Hughes Claire, Farran Emily K
School of Psychology, University College Dublin, D04 V1W8 Dublin, Ireland.
Centre for Educational Neuroscience, Birkbeck, University of London, London WC1H 0AL, UK.
J Intell. 2023 Aug 10;11(8):161. doi: 10.3390/jintelligence11080161.
Research shows that children's block construction skills are positively associated with their concurrent and later mathematics performance. Furthermore, there is evidence that block construction training is particularly beneficial for improving early mathematics skills in children from low-Socio Economic Status (SES) groups who are known to have lower maths performance than their peers. The current study investigates (a) the association between block construction and mathematics in children just before the start of formal schooling (4 years-of-age in the UK) and (b) whether the association between block construction and mathematics differs between children from more compared to less affluent families. Participants in this study included 116 children (M = 3 years 11 months, SD = 3 months) who all completed numeracy, block construction, and receptive vocabulary tasks. Socio-economic status and demographic information (child age, gender, ethnicity) were also obtained from parents. Findings show a strong positive association between block construction and early numeracy skills. Block construction skills explained approximately 5% of the variation in numeracy, even after controlling for age in months, household income, and child receptive vocabulary. When separated by SES group, for children from less affluent families, block construction explained a significant amount of variability (14.5%) in numeracy performance after covariates. For children from more affluent families, block construction did not explain a significant amount of variation in numeracy. These findings suggest that, interventions involving block construction skills may help to reduce SES-based attainment gaps in UK children's mathematics achievement.
研究表明，儿童的积木搭建技能与他们当下及后续的数学成绩呈正相关。此外，有证据表明，积木搭建训练对于提高社会经济地位较低（SES）群体儿童的早期数学技能特别有益，众所周知，这些儿童的数学成绩低于同龄人。本研究调查了（a）在正式入学前（英国为4岁）儿童的积木搭建与数学之间的关联，以及（b）来自较富裕家庭与较不富裕家庭的儿童在积木搭建与数学之间的关联是否存在差异。本研究的参与者包括116名儿童（M = 3岁11个月，SD = 3个月），他们都完成了算术、积木搭建和接受性词汇任务。还从家长那里获取了社会经济地位和人口统计学信息（儿童年龄、性别、种族）。研究结果表明，积木搭建与早期算术技能之间存在很强的正相关。即使在控制了月龄、家庭收入和儿童接受性词汇之后，积木搭建技能仍能解释约5%的算术能力差异。按SES组划分时，对于来自较不富裕家庭的儿童，在控制协变量后，积木搭建能解释算术成绩中相当大比例的变异性（14.5%）。对于来自较富裕家庭的儿童，积木搭建并不能解释算术能力上的显著差异。这些发现表明，涉及积木搭建技能的干预措施可能有助于缩小英国儿童数学成绩中基于SES的成就差距。
