Reasoning With Conditionals About Everyday and Mathematical Concepts in Primary School

A research link between conditional reasoning and mathematics has been reported only for late adolescents and adults, despite claims about the pivotal importance of conditional reasoning, i.e., reasoning with if–then statements, in mathematics. Secondary students’ problems with deductive reasoning i...

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Autores principales: Datsogianni, Anastasia, Sodian, Beate, Markovits, Henry, Ufer, Stefan
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Frontiers Media S.A. 2020
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7658316/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33192773
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2020.531640
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author Datsogianni, Anastasia
Sodian, Beate
Markovits, Henry
Ufer, Stefan
author_facet Datsogianni, Anastasia
Sodian, Beate
Markovits, Henry
Ufer, Stefan
author_sort Datsogianni, Anastasia
collection PubMed
description A research link between conditional reasoning and mathematics has been reported only for late adolescents and adults, despite claims about the pivotal importance of conditional reasoning, i.e., reasoning with if–then statements, in mathematics. Secondary students’ problems with deductive reasoning in mathematics have been documented for a long time. However, evidence from developmental psychology shows that even elementary students possess some early conditional reasoning skills in familiar contexts. It is still an open question to what extent conditional reasoning with mathematical concepts differs from conditional reasoning in familiar everyday contexts. Based on Mental Model Theory (MMT) of conditional reasoning, we assume that (mathematical) content knowledge will influence the generation of models, when conditionals concern mathematical concepts. In a cross-sectional study, 102 students in Cyprus from grades 2, 4, and 6 solved four conditional reasoning tasks on each type of content (everyday and mathematical). All four logical forms, modus ponens (MP), modus tollens (MT), denial of the antecedent (DA), and affirmation of the consequent (AC), were included in each task. Consistent with previous findings, even second graders were able to make correct inferences on some logical forms. Controlling for Working Memory (WM), there were significant effects of grade and logical form, with stronger growth on MP and AC than on MT and DA. The main effect of context was not significant, but context interacted significantly with logical form and grade level. The pattern of results was not consistent with the predictions of MMT. Based on analyses of students’ chosen responses, we propose an alternative mechanism explaining the specific pattern of results. The study indicates that deductive reasoning skills arise from a combination of knowledge of domain-general principles and domain-specific knowledge. It extends results concerning the gradual development of primary students’ conditional reasoning with everyday concepts to reasoning with mathematical concepts adding to our understanding of the link between mathematics and conditional reasoning in primary school. The results inspire the development of educational interventions, while further implications and limitations of the study are discussed.
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spelling pubmed-76583162020-11-13 Reasoning With Conditionals About Everyday and Mathematical Concepts in Primary School Datsogianni, Anastasia Sodian, Beate Markovits, Henry Ufer, Stefan Front Psychol Psychology A research link between conditional reasoning and mathematics has been reported only for late adolescents and adults, despite claims about the pivotal importance of conditional reasoning, i.e., reasoning with if–then statements, in mathematics. Secondary students’ problems with deductive reasoning in mathematics have been documented for a long time. However, evidence from developmental psychology shows that even elementary students possess some early conditional reasoning skills in familiar contexts. It is still an open question to what extent conditional reasoning with mathematical concepts differs from conditional reasoning in familiar everyday contexts. Based on Mental Model Theory (MMT) of conditional reasoning, we assume that (mathematical) content knowledge will influence the generation of models, when conditionals concern mathematical concepts. In a cross-sectional study, 102 students in Cyprus from grades 2, 4, and 6 solved four conditional reasoning tasks on each type of content (everyday and mathematical). All four logical forms, modus ponens (MP), modus tollens (MT), denial of the antecedent (DA), and affirmation of the consequent (AC), were included in each task. Consistent with previous findings, even second graders were able to make correct inferences on some logical forms. Controlling for Working Memory (WM), there were significant effects of grade and logical form, with stronger growth on MP and AC than on MT and DA. The main effect of context was not significant, but context interacted significantly with logical form and grade level. The pattern of results was not consistent with the predictions of MMT. Based on analyses of students’ chosen responses, we propose an alternative mechanism explaining the specific pattern of results. The study indicates that deductive reasoning skills arise from a combination of knowledge of domain-general principles and domain-specific knowledge. It extends results concerning the gradual development of primary students’ conditional reasoning with everyday concepts to reasoning with mathematical concepts adding to our understanding of the link between mathematics and conditional reasoning in primary school. The results inspire the development of educational interventions, while further implications and limitations of the study are discussed. Frontiers Media S.A. 2020-10-29 /pmc/articles/PMC7658316/ /pubmed/33192773 http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2020.531640 Text en Copyright © 2020 Datsogianni, Sodian, Markovits and Ufer. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
spellingShingle Psychology
Datsogianni, Anastasia
Sodian, Beate
Markovits, Henry
Ufer, Stefan
Reasoning With Conditionals About Everyday and Mathematical Concepts in Primary School
title Reasoning With Conditionals About Everyday and Mathematical Concepts in Primary School
title_full Reasoning With Conditionals About Everyday and Mathematical Concepts in Primary School
title_fullStr Reasoning With Conditionals About Everyday and Mathematical Concepts in Primary School
title_full_unstemmed Reasoning With Conditionals About Everyday and Mathematical Concepts in Primary School
title_short Reasoning With Conditionals About Everyday and Mathematical Concepts in Primary School
title_sort reasoning with conditionals about everyday and mathematical concepts in primary school
topic Psychology
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7658316/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33192773
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2020.531640
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