Pub Date : 2025-12-16DOI: 10.1016/j.jecp.2025.106418
Michael D’Erchie , Claire L. Forsmann , Michael Schneider , Andreas Obersteiner
Recent studies show that students’ fraction knowledge predicts their later algebra knowledge. This longitudinal study investigated whether this relationship is bidirectional—that is, whether early algebra knowledge predicts later fraction knowledge—and whether early algebra knowledge improves during fraction instruction. We followed 379 German fifth- and sixth-graders, assessing their early algebra and fraction knowledge before and after a period of six to nine months of fraction instruction. Pretest early algebra knowledge proved a stronger predictor of post-instruction fraction knowledge than either pretest fraction knowledge or end-of-year math grades reported at the study’s outset (small-to-medium effect size). Additionally, students’ early algebra knowledge improved during fraction instruction (small effect size). While prior research typically frames fractions as foundational for algebra, our findings complement this view by providing evidence that the reverse direction also holds true: early algebra knowledge predicts later fraction knowledge. Although the results do not establish causality, they point to the possibility that strengthening early algebraic thinking could benefit fraction learning, and that instruction on fractions may, in turn, improve algebra knowledge. Future experimental studies should explore how to leverage these findings instructionally to support mathematical development.
{"title":"Early algebra knowledge predicts later fraction understanding and improves with fraction instruction","authors":"Michael D’Erchie , Claire L. Forsmann , Michael Schneider , Andreas Obersteiner","doi":"10.1016/j.jecp.2025.106418","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jecp.2025.106418","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Recent studies show that students’ fraction knowledge predicts their later algebra knowledge. This longitudinal study investigated whether this relationship is bidirectional—that is, whether early algebra knowledge predicts later fraction knowledge—and whether early algebra knowledge improves during fraction instruction. We followed 379 German fifth- and sixth-graders, assessing their early algebra and fraction knowledge before and after a period of six to nine months of fraction instruction. Pretest early algebra knowledge proved a stronger predictor of post-instruction fraction knowledge than either pretest fraction knowledge or end-of-year math grades reported at the study’s outset (small-to-medium effect size). Additionally, students’ early algebra knowledge improved during fraction instruction (small effect size). While prior research typically frames fractions as foundational for algebra, our findings complement this view by providing evidence that the reverse direction also holds true: early algebra knowledge predicts later fraction knowledge. Although the results do not establish causality, they point to the possibility that strengthening early algebraic thinking could benefit fraction learning, and that instruction on fractions may, in turn, improve algebra knowledge. Future experimental studies should explore how to leverage these findings instructionally to support mathematical development.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48391,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Experimental Child Psychology","volume":"264 ","pages":"Article 106418"},"PeriodicalIF":2.0,"publicationDate":"2025-12-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145775513","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2025-12-13DOI: 10.1016/j.jecp.2025.106436
Gene P. Ouellette
{"title":"Connections between oral language processes and word reading and spelling in development: a complex, and still unfolding story","authors":"Gene P. Ouellette","doi":"10.1016/j.jecp.2025.106436","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jecp.2025.106436","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":48391,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Experimental Child Psychology","volume":"264 ","pages":"Article 106436"},"PeriodicalIF":2.0,"publicationDate":"2025-12-13","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145758263","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2025-12-11DOI: 10.1016/j.jecp.2025.106435
Anne Wienholz , Daniela Schönberger , Nele Jonasson , Rebecca Püppke , Patrick Bruns , Isabella Buckenmaier , Brigitte Röder , Barbara Hänel-Faulhaber
Statistical learning in deaf and hard of hearing (DHH) children is poorly understood and the impact of age of sign language acquisition has not been systematically investigated. In the present study, we examined visual statistical learning and transfer effects in early (age of sign language acquisition before the age of three years) and late (age of sign language acquisition after the age of three years) DHH child signers (aged 6–8 years) of German Sign Language, compared to age-matched hearing children. The children completed a visual artificial grammar learning task across three learning sessions, each consisting of alternating learning and test phases. In a fourth session, a new stimulus set was introduced using the same underlying artificial grammar to assess transfer abilities. Early signers tended to show higher learning performance in the first session, while no difference between early and late signers was observed in the third session. Compared to age-matched hearing children, both DHH groups were indistinguishable in the first session but performed lower in the third session. Crucially, only early signers successfully transferred the learned sequence rules to the new stimulus set comparable to hearing children. Correlation analyses indicated that higher visuo-spatial working memory capacity in DHH children was associated with higher performance during transfer and in late signers during learning as well. Overall, the findings suggest that early exposure to natural language input affects visual statistical learning abilities in DHH children.
{"title":"Delayed language access hampers but does not hinder visual statistical learning in deaf and hard of hearing children","authors":"Anne Wienholz , Daniela Schönberger , Nele Jonasson , Rebecca Püppke , Patrick Bruns , Isabella Buckenmaier , Brigitte Röder , Barbara Hänel-Faulhaber","doi":"10.1016/j.jecp.2025.106435","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jecp.2025.106435","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Statistical learning in deaf and hard of hearing (DHH) children is poorly understood and the impact of age of sign language acquisition has not been systematically investigated. In the present study, we examined visual statistical learning and transfer effects in early (age of sign language acquisition before the age of three years) and late (age of sign language acquisition after the age of three years) DHH child signers (aged 6–8 years) of German Sign Language, compared to age-matched hearing children. The children completed a visual artificial grammar learning task across three learning sessions, each consisting of alternating learning and test phases. In a fourth session, a new stimulus set was introduced using the same underlying artificial grammar to assess transfer abilities. Early signers tended to show higher learning performance in the first session, while no difference between early and late signers was observed in the third session. Compared to age-matched hearing children, both DHH groups were indistinguishable in the first session but performed lower in the third session. Crucially, only early signers successfully transferred the learned sequence rules to the new stimulus set comparable to hearing children. Correlation analyses indicated that higher visuo-spatial working memory capacity in DHH children was associated with higher performance during transfer and in late signers during learning as well. Overall, the findings suggest that early exposure to natural language input affects visual statistical learning abilities in DHH children.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48391,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Experimental Child Psychology","volume":"264 ","pages":"Article 106435"},"PeriodicalIF":2.0,"publicationDate":"2025-12-11","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145738612","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2025-12-11DOI: 10.1016/j.jecp.2025.106437
Bailey Immel, Shreya Sodhi, Zoe Liberman
Children have early-developing expectations that people from their culture will eat familiar foods (DeJesus et al., 2019). If this is due to children truly understanding that food is cultural, they should also have expectations about what people from other cultures eat: unfamiliar foods. Across two studies, we asked 4- to 9-year-old children (N = 219; Mage = 6.90 years) to sort familiar foods, unfamiliar foods, and disgust elicitors based on who they believed ate the item: people from their national ingroup, people from a national outgroup, both, or neither. We also measured children’s own food preferences and ingroup bias. Both studies provided evidence that children expected ingroup members to eat familiar foods and expected outgroup members to eat unfamiliar foods. Interestingly, children’s cultural expectations about food may also be linked to their own food preferences and bias. Children with stronger personal preferences for familiar foods over unfamiliar foods were more likely to think that only people from their ingroup would eat those foods, and children with more bias against a national outgroup were less likely to expect outgroup members to eat familiar foods. These results demonstrate that children do have a cultural understanding of food choice and that their personal experiences and preferences linked to their social expectations.
孩子们很早就期望来自他们文化的人会吃熟悉的食物（DeJesus et al., 2019）。如果这是由于孩子们真正理解食物是文化的，他们也应该对来自其他文化的人吃什么有期望：不熟悉的食物。在两项研究中，我们要求4到9岁的儿童（N = 219；年龄= 6.90岁）根据他们认为吃了熟悉的食物、不熟悉的食物和引起厌恶的食物：来自他们国家内群体的人，来自国家外群体的人，两者都吃，或者两者都不吃。我们还测量了孩子们自己的食物偏好和群体偏见。两项研究都提供了证据，表明儿童期望群体内成员吃熟悉的食物，期望群体外成员吃不熟悉的食物。有趣的是，儿童对食物的文化期望也可能与他们自己的食物偏好和偏见有关。与不熟悉的食物相比，对熟悉的食物有更强烈个人偏好的孩子更有可能认为只有他们内部群体的人才会吃这些食物，而对国家外群体有更大偏见的孩子不太可能期望外群体成员吃熟悉的食物。这些结果表明，儿童确实对食物选择有文化上的理解，他们的个人经历和偏好与他们的社会期望有关。
{"title":"Children expect national group membership to guide food choice","authors":"Bailey Immel, Shreya Sodhi, Zoe Liberman","doi":"10.1016/j.jecp.2025.106437","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jecp.2025.106437","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Children have early-developing expectations that people from their culture will eat familiar foods (DeJesus et al., 2019). If this is due to children truly understanding that food is cultural, they should also have expectations about what people from other cultures eat: unfamiliar foods. Across two studies, we asked 4- to 9-year-old children (N = 219; M<sub>age</sub> = 6.90 years) to sort familiar foods, unfamiliar foods, and disgust elicitors based on who they believed ate the item: people from their national ingroup, people from a national outgroup, both, or neither. We also measured children’s own food preferences and ingroup bias. Both studies provided evidence that children expected ingroup members to eat familiar foods and expected outgroup members to eat unfamiliar foods. Interestingly, children’s cultural expectations about food may also be linked to their own food preferences and bias. Children with stronger personal preferences for familiar foods over unfamiliar foods were more likely to think that only people from their ingroup would eat those foods, and children with more bias against a national outgroup were less likely to expect outgroup members to eat familiar foods. These results demonstrate that children do have a cultural understanding of food choice and that their personal experiences and preferences linked to their social expectations.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48391,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Experimental Child Psychology","volume":"264 ","pages":"Article 106437"},"PeriodicalIF":2.0,"publicationDate":"2025-12-11","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145738613","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
In typically developing 9-year-olds, the perceptual span—the region of text from which useful information is extracted during a single eye fixation—extends up to seven characters to the right of fixation. This parafoveal preview supports fluent reading by facilitating saccade planning and lexical preprocessing. However, the perceptual span in children with dyslexia remains undocumented, and findings in adults are inconsistent. While theoretical models suggest a reduced span in dyslexia, this study offers the first experimental test of this hypothesis in children.
Methods
14 dyslexic children aged 9- to 12-year-old and 24 age-matched controls participated in the present eye-tracking study. Using a gaze-contingent window paradigm, children read sentences aloud while the number of visible characters around the point of fixation was systematically manipulated. Reading speed, reading accuracy, fixation duration and saccade length were assessed across five window size conditions.
Results
Our results show a diminished impact of window sizes on the reading speed of children with dyslexia as compared to controls. Eye-tracking data confirmed an increased foveal load and reduced parafoveal processing for this group. In both groups, gaze-contingent windows did not impact reading accuracy.
Conclusion
Results are interpreted within the framework of the foveal load hypothesis, alongside prior evidence of reduced preview benefit and heightened visual crowding in dyslexia. In this view, the greater effort required for foveal word identification in dyslexic readers limits the attentional resources available for parafoveal processing, thereby constraining access to upcoming text and ultimately reducing the effective perceptual span during reading.
{"title":"Reduced perceptual span in dyslexic children: a gaze-contingent eye-tracking study","authors":"Antonin Rossier-Bisaillon , Julie Robidoux , Brigitte Stanké , Bruno Gauthier , Boutheina Jemel","doi":"10.1016/j.jecp.2025.106434","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jecp.2025.106434","url":null,"abstract":"<div><h3>Introduction</h3><div>In typically developing 9-year-olds, the perceptual span—the region of text from which useful information is extracted during a single eye fixation—extends up to seven characters to the right of fixation. This parafoveal preview supports fluent reading by facilitating saccade planning and lexical preprocessing. However, the perceptual span in children with dyslexia remains undocumented, and findings in adults are inconsistent. While theoretical models suggest a reduced span in dyslexia, this study offers the first experimental test of this hypothesis in children.</div></div><div><h3>Methods</h3><div>14 dyslexic children aged 9- to 12-year-old and 24 age-matched controls participated in the present eye-tracking study. Using a gaze-contingent window paradigm, children read sentences aloud while the number of visible characters around the point of fixation was systematically manipulated. Reading speed, reading accuracy, fixation duration and saccade length were assessed across five window size conditions.</div></div><div><h3>Results</h3><div>Our results show a diminished impact of window sizes on the reading speed of children with dyslexia as compared to controls. Eye-tracking data confirmed an increased foveal load and reduced parafoveal processing for this group. In both groups, gaze-contingent windows did not impact reading accuracy.</div></div><div><h3>Conclusion</h3><div>Results are interpreted within the framework of the foveal load hypothesis, alongside prior evidence of reduced preview benefit and heightened visual crowding in dyslexia. In this view, the greater effort required for foveal word identification in dyslexic readers limits the attentional resources available for parafoveal processing, thereby constraining access to upcoming text and ultimately reducing the effective perceptual span during reading.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48391,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Experimental Child Psychology","volume":"264 ","pages":"Article 106434"},"PeriodicalIF":2.0,"publicationDate":"2025-12-10","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145726847","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2025-12-08DOI: 10.1016/j.jecp.2025.106414
Hyekyung Park , John E. Opfer
Could the average estimate of a class of kindergartners be more accurate than any adult estimate? Normally, yes: a “wisdom of crowds” (WoC) effect would be observed if individual estimates were independent and unbiased, leading any crowd of children to outperform any individual adult. However, children’s estimates have been proposed to be biased by logarithmic encoding of numerical value, which would undermine the WoC effect. Here, we examined the WoC effect to test whether estimates reflect bias (e.g., logarithmic encoding), noise (e.g., uncertainty), or both. In Study 1, 80 4- to 7-year-olds and 80 adults were asked to estimate the number of dots on a number line, and we found that WoC effects and effects of crowd size were stronger on 0–30 than 0–100 number-lines. In Study 2, 80 children and 80 adults completed a symbolic number-line task, and we found similar effects. In both studies, we also compared a crowd of less-advanced with individual more-advanced children. Again, the WoC effect was stronger on 0–30 than 0–100 number lines. Overall, results provide further evidence that development of numerical estimation involves reducing bias (especially for large numbers), not just reducing noise. Implications for theories of number representation are discussed.
{"title":"Sources of error in numerical estimation: Insights from the wisdom of crowds effect","authors":"Hyekyung Park , John E. Opfer","doi":"10.1016/j.jecp.2025.106414","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jecp.2025.106414","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Could the average estimate of a class of kindergartners be more accurate than any adult estimate? Normally, yes: a “wisdom of crowds” (WoC) effect would be observed if individual estimates were independent and unbiased, leading any crowd of children to outperform any individual adult. However, children’s estimates have been proposed to be <em>biased</em> by logarithmic encoding of numerical value, which would undermine the WoC effect. Here, we examined the WoC effect to test whether estimates reflect bias (e.g., logarithmic encoding), noise (e.g., uncertainty), or both. In Study 1, 80 4- to 7-year-olds and 80 adults were asked to estimate the number of dots on a number line, and we found that WoC effects and effects of crowd size were stronger on 0–30 than 0–100 number-lines. In Study 2, 80 children and 80 adults completed a symbolic number-line task, and we found similar effects. In both studies, we also compared a crowd of less-advanced with individual more-advanced children. Again, the WoC effect was stronger on 0–30 than 0–100 number lines. Overall, results provide further evidence that development of numerical estimation involves reducing <em>bias</em> (especially for large numbers), not just reducing <em>noise</em>. Implications for theories of number representation are discussed.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48391,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Experimental Child Psychology","volume":"264 ","pages":"Article 106414"},"PeriodicalIF":2.0,"publicationDate":"2025-12-08","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145698141","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2025-12-01Epub Date: 2025-08-08DOI: 10.1016/j.jecp.2025.106350
Katarzyna Cantarero, Magdalena Król, Daria Gruberska, Maria Michalik, Gabriela Sorsa, Julia Żamejć, Sergio Moreno-Ríos
This study investigates how objective reality (truth vs falsity), intention (honest vs dishonest) and motivation (prosocial vs self-serving) affect lie labelling and moral judgment of lies. Using a comic-based task, we conducted a study with 5-6-year-olds and 9-10-year-olds (N = 194). Participants were presented with scenarios where a protagonist made either prosocial or self-serving statements that were truthful or false, with honest or deceptive intent. Results showed that younger children were more likely to judge objectively false statements as lies, while older children placed greater emphasis on the protagonist's intention. Prosocial lies were evaluated more positively than self-serving lies. However, contrary to prior research, prosocial lies were not less likely to be labeled as lies, but unlike in previous studies children were informed about the honest or dishonest intentions, which could prevent them from interpreting self-serving motivation as dishonest intentions. Additionally, lies were based on factual statements rather than opinions. Results of this research contribute to theory of mind, moral development, and social cognition research, offering insights into how children distinguish between truth and deception. The study also introduces a novel, language-independent tool for assessing children's understanding of deception, which may have applications in cross-cultural research and educational settings.
{"title":"If someone is wrong but sincere, is it a lie? The role of objective falsity, intention, and in children's understanding of lying.","authors":"Katarzyna Cantarero, Magdalena Król, Daria Gruberska, Maria Michalik, Gabriela Sorsa, Julia Żamejć, Sergio Moreno-Ríos","doi":"10.1016/j.jecp.2025.106350","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jecp.2025.106350","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>This study investigates how objective reality (truth vs falsity), intention (honest vs dishonest) and motivation (prosocial vs self-serving) affect lie labelling and moral judgment of lies. Using a comic-based task, we conducted a study with 5-6-year-olds and 9-10-year-olds (N = 194). Participants were presented with scenarios where a protagonist made either prosocial or self-serving statements that were truthful or false, with honest or deceptive intent. Results showed that younger children were more likely to judge objectively false statements as lies, while older children placed greater emphasis on the protagonist's intention. Prosocial lies were evaluated more positively than self-serving lies. However, contrary to prior research, prosocial lies were not less likely to be labeled as lies, but unlike in previous studies children were informed about the honest or dishonest intentions, which could prevent them from interpreting self-serving motivation as dishonest intentions. Additionally, lies were based on factual statements rather than opinions. Results of this research contribute to theory of mind, moral development, and social cognition research, offering insights into how children distinguish between truth and deception. The study also introduces a novel, language-independent tool for assessing children's understanding of deception, which may have applications in cross-cultural research and educational settings.</p>","PeriodicalId":48391,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Experimental Child Psychology","volume":"260 ","pages":"106350"},"PeriodicalIF":2.0,"publicationDate":"2025-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144812591","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2025-12-01Epub Date: 2025-08-08DOI: 10.1016/j.jecp.2025.106348
Kelly M McGinn, Julie L Booth, Alexandra Huyghe
This study examined the effects of the MathByExample intervention, which integrates worked examples and self-explanation prompts into math worksheets to address 4th and 5th graders' misconceptions. Researchers conducted a year-long, classroom-based experiment in 58 U.S. classrooms, randomly assigning classrooms to experimental or control conditions. The study explored the intervention's impact on algebra readiness and the moderating effects of prior knowledge and intervention dosage. Results showed no significant overall impact of the intervention on foundational algebra knowledge (FAK) or preparation for future learning (PFL). However, further analysis provided key insights. For FAK scores, greater self-explanation prompt attempts improved learning, but only when students engaged with a high number of worksheets. Students with higher prior knowledge experienced a negative effect of attempting more worksheets, suggesting they may not benefit from excessive practice. Self-explanation attempts had a stronger positive effect for students with higher prior knowledge. For PFL scores, self-explanation attempts significantly improved PFL scores, but only for students with at least average prior knowledge, with the strongest effects seen in those completing more worksheets. These findings suggest that educators may benefit from actively incorporating the study and explanation of worked examples into elementary math instruction. To maximize their impact, teachers should regularly integrate worked examples into their lessons. Encouraging students to engage with worked examples through self-explanation may mitigate common misconceptions and enhance students' readiness for more advanced algebra concepts.
{"title":"Preparing 4th and 5th graders to learn algebra with worked examples and self-explanation prompts.","authors":"Kelly M McGinn, Julie L Booth, Alexandra Huyghe","doi":"10.1016/j.jecp.2025.106348","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jecp.2025.106348","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>This study examined the effects of the MathByExample intervention, which integrates worked examples and self-explanation prompts into math worksheets to address 4th and 5th graders' misconceptions. Researchers conducted a year-long, classroom-based experiment in 58 U.S. classrooms, randomly assigning classrooms to experimental or control conditions. The study explored the intervention's impact on algebra readiness and the moderating effects of prior knowledge and intervention dosage. Results showed no significant overall impact of the intervention on foundational algebra knowledge (FAK) or preparation for future learning (PFL). However, further analysis provided key insights. For FAK scores, greater self-explanation prompt attempts improved learning, but only when students engaged with a high number of worksheets. Students with higher prior knowledge experienced a negative effect of attempting more worksheets, suggesting they may not benefit from excessive practice. Self-explanation attempts had a stronger positive effect for students with higher prior knowledge. For PFL scores, self-explanation attempts significantly improved PFL scores, but only for students with at least average prior knowledge, with the strongest effects seen in those completing more worksheets. These findings suggest that educators may benefit from actively incorporating the study and explanation of worked examples into elementary math instruction. To maximize their impact, teachers should regularly integrate worked examples into their lessons. Encouraging students to engage with worked examples through self-explanation may mitigate common misconceptions and enhance students' readiness for more advanced algebra concepts.</p>","PeriodicalId":48391,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Experimental Child Psychology","volume":"260 ","pages":"106348"},"PeriodicalIF":2.0,"publicationDate":"2025-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144812592","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2025-11-24DOI: 10.1016/j.jecp.2025.106421
Shuliang Bai , Peibing Liu , Renlai Zhou
Test anxiety impacts students’ academic and psychological well-being, influenced not just by their own threat processing but also by their parents’ threat processing. This study aims to explore the association between parents’ threat processing and children’s test anxiety. The study initially recruited 53 parent–child dyads, and 45 dyads (N = 90) remained after data screening, comprising 20 children with high test anxiety (Mean age = 10.44 years) and their parents (Mean age = 38.75 years), and 25 children with low test anxiety (Mean age = 11.13 years) and their parents (Mean age = 38.36 years). All participants completed the emotional Stroop task and had their event-related potentials recorded when processing test-related and non-test-related threatening words, using the interference effects of the N2 and N450 as indicators of threat processing. Results showed that only under non-test-related threatening conditions did parents’ N2 and N450 interference effects negatively relate to children’s test anxiety levels, s suggesting that parents’ neural responses to general threat cues may play a role in shaping children’s anxiety and informing family-based interventions.
{"title":"Parental neural responses to threat impact children’s test anxiety","authors":"Shuliang Bai , Peibing Liu , Renlai Zhou","doi":"10.1016/j.jecp.2025.106421","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jecp.2025.106421","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Test anxiety impacts students’ academic and psychological well-being, influenced not just by their own threat processing but also by their parents’ threat processing. This study aims to explore the association between parents’ threat processing and children’s test anxiety. The study initially recruited 53 parent–child dyads, and 45 dyads (N = 90) remained after data screening, comprising 20 children with high test anxiety (Mean <sub>age</sub> = 10.44 years) and their parents (Mean <sub>age</sub> = 38.75 years), and 25 children with low test anxiety (Mean <sub>age</sub> = 11.13 years) and their parents (Mean <sub>age</sub> = 38.36 years). All participants completed the emotional Stroop task and had their event-related potentials recorded when processing test-related and non-test-related threatening words, using the interference effects of the N2 and N450 as indicators of threat processing. Results showed that only under non-test-related threatening conditions did parents’ N2 and N450 interference effects negatively relate to children’s test anxiety levels, s suggesting that parents’ neural responses to general threat cues may play a role in shaping children’s anxiety and informing family-based interventions.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48391,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Experimental Child Psychology","volume":"263 ","pages":"Article 106421"},"PeriodicalIF":2.0,"publicationDate":"2025-11-24","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145606885","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
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