Core and Cultural Number Abilities in Children in the First Year of School - Lab Report Example

1000 word discussion for "Core and Cultural Number Abilities in Children in the First Year of School" The discussion of the findings shall be conducted under three major themes as corresponds with the results gathered earlier. The diagram below gives a pictorial representation of the themes under which the discussion shall take place. From the diagram, it could be seen that the general theme or topic for the research is core and cultural number abilities. These would be broken down into three sub-themes with the first them having four sub-categories. Descriptive Statistics General Cognitive Measures Participants showed a relatively satisfactory ability to general cognitive measures. The greatest strengths of the participants were in the areas of ravens and non-word repetitive as against digit span. There is an alarming academic interpretation to the effect that the mean scores for digit span and raven and non-word repetition were so vast. The implication is that participants have very weak verbal working memory as compared to interactive working memory. The participants lack the ability to record sufficient visual inputs that can enter their short term verbal store and also refresh the decaying representations of their minds (Cambridge Brain Science, 2011). The situation is however not alarming since there was a general average score. With reference to ravens and non-word repetition, it can be established that the participants have maximum “phonological storage combined with a particular problem of processing novel speech, stimuli” (Marton, 2007). Frequent exercises to that effect should however not cease as long periods of retrained practice can cause retrogression in the performance of participants (Anane, 2009). (that is, any item that is about to be forgotten). Dot Enumeration The results obtained in the dot enumeration can be discussed more in terms of sensory store, perceptual organization deficit than short-term visual memory (STVM) deficit of the participants as they are barely first year students and also for the fact that the general cognitive measures took care of the short-term visual memory. Referring to the results therefore, it could be said that participants cannot be described as schizophrenic individuals since the Dot Enumeration Perceptual Organization Task has that “schizophrenic individuals tend to perform poorly on all cognitive tasks” (Rabinowicz, Opler, Owen and Knight, 1996). Already, participants had shown mastery in the general cognitive measures to the effect that they do not perform poorly in cognitive task. Another confirmation to the effect that participants can not in ay way be tagged as schizophrenic individuals is the fact that the reaction times for the function of set size kept rising among the set of sizes. This shows a steady improvement in performance and thus a relation to their academic competence (Brobbey, 2009). Approximation The response time curve of average approximation response times as a function of ratio size were taken in relation to non-symbolic number comparison. This method was effective in knowing whether or not participants had dyscalculia and therefore the discussion can be done to that effect – dyscalculia. Generally, low performance in the response time curve of average approximation should be a basis to conclude that participants suffer from dyscalculia. Mussolin, Mejias and Noël, 2010) explain that “Developmental dyscalculia (DD) is a pervasive difficulty affecting number processing and arithmetic.” With none of the participants recording less than 1000msec and with readings rising steadily, the general conclusion is that participants performed significantly above chance for all ratios and thus are not dyscalculia. The best part of the approximation readings was that indeed, accuracy was close to ceiling for all but the largest ratios as seen in table 3. With a close to ceiling accuracy, statistics can always be judged as valid (Prempeh, 2009). Single-digit Addition The single digit addition were aimed at Problem-solving success, computational strategies (including no overt strategy use), and overt counting behavior. This is more less saying that the single-digit addition was to test the mathematical abilities of participants. In the various areas that participants were tested, they showed different levels of performance. Their levels of performance in computational strategies were however relatively low as compared to other problem solving. Suetens, Fua and Hanson (1992) have it that computational strategies are useful in academic circles for determining a number of object recognition abilities in students. They state that computational strategies are needed in to assess “for feature vector classification, situations involving reliable data and complex models, noisy data and simple models, and adaptation for combinations of complex situations.” With the retrogressive performance therefore, participants could be said to be lagging behind when it comes to measuring the four key factors outlined by Suetens, Fua and Hanson. Exploratory Analysis The series of exploratory analysis conducted showed a very implicative trend. The trend is that there are three major categories of performers among the participants. These groups are the slow, medium and fast learners. In a typical classroom situation, this trend is very much expected. The trend of intellectual diversity in the class however leaves a lot of responsibility on the teacher. Gross (1993) notes that “Since the 1960s and the rise of the civil rights movement, American colleges and universities have been engaged in an ongoing debate about how best to enroll, educate, and graduate students from groups”. This same need for diversity exists with intellectual differences. Teachers handling intellectually diverse classes are expected to present equal opportunities to learners regardless of their intellectual competence. In doing this, Atherton advises “removing obstacles, and ensuring that everyone in the class is on a "level playing-field", to use another of the clichés of the discourse.” Again, it is important that teachers give low achievers extra attention for practicing till they can close up the gap with their colleagues. Relationship between Differences in Core Abilities and Other Measures Again, the relationship was centered on comparing results between low, medium and fast learners. The results showed that scores between these groups were very marginal and minimal. This means that in most cases, students, regardless of their learning competence could be helped to take up academic tasks and indeed master them to perfection. REFERENCE LIST Anane, Richard. The Effect of Constant Practice on Academic Achievement. PrintMark Publication. 2009. Print. Washington Atherton J S Teaching and Learning; Equal Opportunities in the Classroom. http://www.learningandteaching.info/teaching/equal_opportunities.htm 2011. Web. 10 September 2011. Available on line http://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=128763&dl=ACM&coll=DL&CFID=39763124&CFTOKEN=14384899 Cambridge Brain Science, Improve your digit-span performance by chunking. http://www.cambridgebrainsciences.com/browse/memory/test/digit-span. 2011. Web. September 5, 2011. Gross B. D. Diversity and Complexity in the Classroom: Considerations of Race, Ethnicity, and Gender. http://teaching.berkeley.edu/bgd/diversity.html. 1993. Web. September 7, 2011 Marton, Klara. Do non-word repetition errors in children with specific language impairment reflect a weakness in an unidentified skill specific to non-word repetition or a deficit in simultaneous processing? NIHPA Author Manuscripts. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1821356/. 2007. Web. September 6, 2011. Mussolin C, Mejias S, Noël MP. Symbolic and nonsymbolic number comparison in children with and without dyscalculia. Cognition 115(1):10-25. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20149355. 2010. Web. September 7, 2011. Prempeh, Cosmos. Validity and Reliability of Basic Data Collection. Do-Dove publications. Print. 2009. Toronto. Rabinowicz E. F, Opler L. A, Owen D. R and Knight RA. Dot Enumeration Perceptual Organization Task (DEPOT): evidence for a short-term visual memory deficit in schizophrenia. J Abnorm Psychol. Journal 105(3):336-48. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/8772004. 1996. Web. September 8, 2011. Suetens P., Fua P and Hanson A. Computational strategies for object recognition. Journal ACM Computing Surveys (CSUR) Volume 24 Issue 1 Read More