Cognitive Characteristics in Primary School Children with Different Levels of Mathematical Achievement

The aim of the article is to investigate the characteristics of the cognitive functioning of primary school children with different levels of mathematics achievement. The study ana-lyzed both basic cognitive characteristics – processing speed, working memory, number sense, and general characteristics – nonverbal intelligence. Computerized test tasks “Choice Reaction Time”, “Corsi Block”, “Number Sense” were used to test basic cognitive characteristics; the paper version of the “Standard Progressive Matrices” test was used to test the level of nonverbal intelligence. The study involved all students in grades 2–4 of a general educational institution aged 7.8 to 11.5 years. All participants were divided into three groups according to the annual math grade: “Excellent performance”, “Good performance”, “Satisfactory performance”. The results of variance analysis revealed statistically significant differences between the three groups of primary school children (“Excellent performance”, “Good performance” or “Satisfactory performance”) in working memory, Number sense and nonverbal intelligence. The greatest differences were observed for nonverbal intelligence – 21% of the variance of this indicator is explained by the student's belonging to the group “Excellent performance”, “Good performance” or “Satisfactory performance”. The processing speed does not differ in primary school children with excellent, good and satisfactory performance in mathematics. The results of the correlation analysis showed that the structure of relationships changes in groups with different performance – in the group with satisfactory performance; there are a greater number of connections than in the excellent performance group. In addition, higher correlation coefficients are observed in the group of schoolchildren with satisfactory performance compared with the group of schoolchildren with excellent performance. In particular, working memory and nonverbal intelligence are statistically interrelated only in groups of younger students with good and satisfactory math performance, and the coefficient of com-munication increases with the deterioration of performance. It is possible that these schoolchildren solve learning problems by attracting additional cognitive and non-cognitive resources. The results obtained are interpreted in terms of the resource productivity theory in solving problems of different levels of complexity.