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September 7, 2008As easy as 1, 2, 3: Number sense correlates with test scores |
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From EurekAlert! - Breaking News: Knowing how precisely a high school freshman can estimate the number of objects in a group gives you a good idea how well he has done in math as far back as kindergarten, researchers at The Johns Hopkins University found. Good "number sense" at age 14 correlates with higher scores on standardized math tests throughout a child's life up to that point and weaker "number sense" at 14 predicts lower scores on those standardized tests, said Justin Halberda, assistant professor of psychological and brain sciences in the university's Krieger School of Arts and Sciences. Halberda teamed up on the research with colleagues Michèle Mazzocco, associate professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences in the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine and researcher at the Kennedy Krieger Institute, and Lisa Feigenson, also a Johns Hopkins assistant professor of psychological and brain sciences. Though people often think of mathematics as a pinnacle intellectual achievement of humankind, research reveals that some intuition about numbers, counting and mathematical ability is basic to almost all animals. For example, creatures that gather or hunt for food keep track of the approximate number of food items they procure in order to return to the places where they get the most sustenance. The Johns Hopkins team wondered whether this basic, seemingly innate number sense had any bearing on the formal mathematics that people learn in school. So the researchers asked 64 14-year-olds to look at flashing groups of yellow and blue dots on a computer screen and estimate which dots were more numerous.
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