CAREER: Magnitude Biases in Mathematical Cognition, Learning, and Development

Wesleyan University, Middletown CT

Investigators

Abstract

This project will investigate the role of magnitude biases in mathematical cognition, learning, and development. Magnitude bias refers to the idea that psychological magnitudes are often different from their corresponding actual magnitudes. This proposal lays out evidence for these biases in oft-used research paradigms in numerical cognition that are applicable to math education, describes two sets of studies to investigate these further, and sets the stage for a future career that will investigate educational implications by developing partnerships with educational researchers and practitioners. The first set of experiments investigates the role of abstract magnitude bias in children's learning to integrate their intuitive understanding of quantity with linguistic systems. This work has important theoretical implications for mathematical cognition and learning, and it has demonstrated applications to math education: the developmental changes in question are correlated with changes in school-based math achievement. The second set investigates the role of perceptual magnitude bias in nonverbal quantitative thinking. This work has important theoretical implications for the nature of the representational foundations of children's math knowledge, and it holds promise for educational applications because perceptual biases affect our thinking about the magnitudes of observed items. To the extent that instructional materials such as manipulatives and visualization tools are meant to convey meaningful magnitude information, these biases are likely to affect math concept learning.