Trends in Neuroscience and Education最新文献

Described as the ability to begin solving a problem in one way and then to shift to another strategy efficiently according to the new demands, cognitive flexibility (CF) can be associated, like other executive functions (EF), to math performance. However, CF is not yet a systematically reviewed component of EF in relation to math outcomes. As an effort to better understand the data available, a meta-analysis of random effects with 23 studies including children (N=35.355; M age=5,8; 46% male) was conducted, using for search the databases Scopus, Science Direct, PsycARTICLES, SciELO and also lists of references. Results showed that CF and math are related, with a moderate heterogeneity and significant weighted effect size (r=0,35; Q=67,82; p=0,01; I² = 57, 24%). The results of different types of mathematics skills showed similar effects (general math r = 0,35; conceptual math r=0,34; procedural math r=0,33). Correlational and univariate analysis of variance data showed that age negatively impacts the magnitude of the overall correlation between CF and math, indicating that in younger children mathematics performance is more strongly impacted by cognitive flexibility (r=0,40; p=0,05). Thus, the assumption that CF have an important influence on mathematical performance is supported, especially in younger children, which indicates that cognitive assessment of CF in educational settings from early childhood can help guide important actions, as by knowing these underlying skills implicated in math performance interventions can focus on them aiming to improve math skills.

This study assessed the effectiveness of an executive function training programme aiming at reducing the behavioural and emotional problems of 87 minors, aged between 8 and 17, in residential care within the Spanish foster care system. Participants’ executive functions were assessed with the Spanish adaptation of the Behaviour Rating Inventory of Executive Function (BRIEF®2). For the assessment of their emotional and behavioural problems, the Spanish adaptation of the Assessment System for Children and Adolescents (SENA) was used. The results revealed an improvement in initiative and task supervision. After the intervention, the minors reported having fewer problems with their classmates and fewer symptoms related to traumatic events. According to the educators, those minors also presented better integration and social skills, a greater willingness to study, less isolation, less symptoms of depression, fewer emotional problems and a higher level and variety of personal resources.

Background: Adolescence is a sensitive period in motor development but little is known about how long-term learning dependent processes shape hand function in tasks of different complexity.

Procedure: We mapped two fundamental aspects of hand function: simple repetitive and complex sequential finger movements, as a function of the length of musical instrumental training. We controlled maturational factors such as chronological and biological age of adolescent female participants (11 to 15 years of age, n = 114).

Results: We demonstrated that experience improves performance as a function of task complexity, the more complex task being more susceptible for experience driven performance changes.

Conclusion: Overall, these results suggest that fine motor skills involving cognitive control and relying on long-range functional brain networks are substantially shaped by experience. On the other hand, performance in a simple repetitive task that explains fine motor speed is primarily determined by white matter development driven by maturational factors.

Background

Spaced learning produces better learning performance than extended learning periods without or with little interruptions. This “spacing effect” exists on different time scales, ranging from seconds to months. We recently found large spacing effects with a hitherto rarely investigated 12-hours spacing interval.

Methods

The present study tested for potentially larger learning effects in the temporal vicinity of 12 h and analyzed spacing effects separately for learning and forgetting.

102 participants learned 40 German-Japanese vocabulary pairs in separate conditions with 7.5 min and 4-, 8-, 12-, and 24-hours spacing intervals. Two final tests were executed after retention intervals of 24 h and 7 days.

The 7.5-min spacing interval produced a steeper initial learning curve than all other spacing intervals. 24 h after the last learning unit, we found almost no forgetting in the 4-, 8- and 12-hours spacing conditions, but about 9.3% and 3.6% forgetting in the 7.5 min and 24 h spacing conditions. After 7 days, forgetting was in the range of 13% for all conditions between 4 and 24 h. The 7.5 min condition produced 34% forgetting.

Results and conclusion

Our results indicate that spacing intervals in the range of 8 h ± 4 h provide high learning performance and can be easily integrated in our daily schedules.

Background

It is unclear how cognitive control accounts for academic performance in math-intensive higher education and how it links to male over-representation in math-intensive education in gender-inequitable countries.

Purpose

To examine the link between cognitive control and math-intensive education with a focus on male overrepresentation by using cognitive performance (task and construct level) to account for academic grades, and examining sex-specificity in cognitive performance (task and construct level), and using sex-differences in cognitive performance to account for academic grades.

Results

Four hierarchical regressions were used (two using task scores and two summed scores) with predictors entered in 3 blocks (working memory, flexibility, inhibition) to explain academic performance (bootstrapped sampling at 2000 samples; N = 39; males =69%). Task-level analysis (Corsi span & mental rotation) and construct-level analysis indicate working memory as a significant predictor of grades, model-fit improved for all-male sample. Results of analysis of variance using the performance of 183 students on four cognitive tasks (N = 183; males = 81%) showed high scores of working memory task and decision-making task among male participants; female scores were higher in a task assessing planning/cognitive flexibility and in the inhibition task. Differences in the two hierarchical regressions indicated that planning/cognitive flexibility accounts for the academic performance of the male-female mixed sample; however, working memory, most importantly decision-making related to risk and uncertainty, accounts for the academic performance of the all-male sample.

Conclusion

Similar to developing countries, working memory and decision making might contribute to academic performance, potentially explaining male over-representation in math-intensive higher education. Academic grades might disproportionately rely on working memory and risky decision-making; equal emphasis and inclusive development of all components of cognitive control via academic curriculum and assessment might improve diversity in math-intensive higher education.

Background

Despite the relevance of basic numerical skills to later mathematical outcomes, there remains little consensus on which skills comprise the construct of early numeracy.

Procedure

Here, we evaluate recent studies that investigated this construct using various approaches.

Main findings

Findings from these studies indicated broad consensus in considering skills such as counting, number relations, and basic arithmetic, as central aspects of early numeracy. However, both the number and contents of identified factors varied considerably across studies.

Conclusions

Although this review substantiated the critical relevance of certain basic numerical skills, it also highlights a need for future research to evaluate the structure of early numeracy in a more systematic and coordinated way to increase comparability and coherence across studies.

Background

Due to the COVID-19 pandemic schools all over the world were closed and thereby students had to be instructed from distance. Consequently, the use of online learning environments for online distance learning increased massively. However, the perseverance of using online learning environments during and after school closures remains to be investigated.

Method

We examined German students’ (n ≈ 300,000 students; ≈ 18 million computed problem sets) engagement in an online learning environment for mathematics by means of survival analysis.

Results

We observed that the total number of students who registered increased considerably during and after school closures compared to the previous three years. Importantly, however, the proportion of students engaged also decreased more rapidly over time.

Conclusion

The application of survival analysis provided valuable insights into students’ engagement in online learning - or conversely students’ increased dropout rates - over time. Its application to educational settings allows to address a broader range of questions on students’ engagement in online learning environments in the future.

Objective

People often perceive a quantity of specific objects that appear as part of an overall group of items (a subset). This study investigates this type of perception among a population with mathematical leaning difficulties (MLD).

Method

Sixty-two participants (mean age: 26.82) reported the general and subset quantity of items using a subset quantity detection task or a conjunction visual search task.

Results

MLD had difficulties perceiving both the general quantity presented and the subset quantity of items. They also had difficulties preforming a conjunction visual search task, even when the task did not involve numerical processing.

Conclusions

MLD has spatial difficulties in the form of visual search and subset quantity detection. The current study suggests that MLD might experience greater difficulties in daily tasks, which might be related to those tasks (e.g., detecting the amount of forks among other items of silverware on the table).

Background

Research with adults suggests that executive function (EF) might play a role in the development of divergent thinking, a key component of creativity, by helping children override canonical knowledge.

Procedure

We examined this possibility in two experiments, by manipulating the familiarity of objects used in the Alternate Uses test of divergent thinking both between-participants (Experiment 1: N = 53 4-year-olds and 50 6-year-olds) and within-participants (Experiment 2: N = 74 5-year-olds).

Findings

We found evidence that younger children generated more and/or more original ideas for novel than familiar objects. However, this effect disappeared with age and did not depend on child EF. Further, EF was inversely associated with divergent thinking, controlling for age, intelligence, and income.

Significance

These results call into question a simple executive account of children's divergent thinking and suggest that, among predominantly White, socioeconomically advantaged 4–6-year-olds, divergent idea-generation might be a primarily bottom-up process that can be hindered by top-down thinking.

Background

Although breaks are essential to restoring cognitive and psychological conditions for learning, short breaks within school lessons are not established and the specificity of effects has not often been investigated. Therefore, the effects of a physical activity (Study 1) and a mindfulness intervention (Study 2) were investigated.

Procedure

By an intervention-control group design, the effects of daily 10-min physical activity (Study 1: N = 162, 4th grade) and mindfulness breaks (Study 2: N = 79, 5th grade) were implemented within regular school lessons over a 2-week time period to research the impact on attention, reading comprehension, and self-esteem.

Results

In the physical activity intervention children's attention improved (attention-processing speed: p < .004, ${\eta }_p^2$ = .05, attention-performance: p < .025, ${\eta }_p^2$ = .03), and in the mindfulness intervention reading comprehension improved (p < .012, ${\eta }_p^2$ = .08) compared to the controls. Results further indicated that self-esteem moderated the relationship between groups and attention improvement in study 1.

Conclusion

Classroom-based short physical and mindfulness breaks could support attention and reading comprehension, which are known to support overall academic success.