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Language Ability Accounts for Ethnic Difference in Mathematics Achievement
The mathematics achievement of minority students has always been a focal point of educators in China. This study investigated the differences in mathematics achievement between Han and minority pupils to determine if there is any cognitive mechanism that can account for the discrepancy. We recruited...
Autores principales: | , , , , |
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
Publicado: |
Frontiers Media S.A.
2022
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Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9354024/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35936256 http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2022.929719 |
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author | Cui, Jiaxin Lv, Liting Du, Huibo Cui, Zhanling Zhou, Xinlin |
author_facet | Cui, Jiaxin Lv, Liting Du, Huibo Cui, Zhanling Zhou, Xinlin |
author_sort | Cui, Jiaxin |
collection | PubMed |
description | The mathematics achievement of minority students has always been a focal point of educators in China. This study investigated the differences in mathematics achievement between Han and minority pupils to determine if there is any cognitive mechanism that can account for the discrepancy. We recruited 236 Han students and 272 minority students (including Uygur and Kazak) from the same primary schools. They were tested on mathematics achievement, language abilities, and general cognitive abilities. The results showed that Han pupils had better mathematics achievement scores and better Chinese language ability than minority students. After controlling for age, gender, and general cognitive abilities, there were still significant differences in mathematics achievement between Han and minority students. However, these differences disappeared after controlling for language ability. These results suggest that the relatively poor levels of mathematics achievement observed in minority students is related to poor Chinese language skills. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-9354024 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2022 |
publisher | Frontiers Media S.A. |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-93540242022-08-06 Language Ability Accounts for Ethnic Difference in Mathematics Achievement Cui, Jiaxin Lv, Liting Du, Huibo Cui, Zhanling Zhou, Xinlin Front Psychol Psychology The mathematics achievement of minority students has always been a focal point of educators in China. This study investigated the differences in mathematics achievement between Han and minority pupils to determine if there is any cognitive mechanism that can account for the discrepancy. We recruited 236 Han students and 272 minority students (including Uygur and Kazak) from the same primary schools. They were tested on mathematics achievement, language abilities, and general cognitive abilities. The results showed that Han pupils had better mathematics achievement scores and better Chinese language ability than minority students. After controlling for age, gender, and general cognitive abilities, there were still significant differences in mathematics achievement between Han and minority students. However, these differences disappeared after controlling for language ability. These results suggest that the relatively poor levels of mathematics achievement observed in minority students is related to poor Chinese language skills. Frontiers Media S.A. 2022-07-22 /pmc/articles/PMC9354024/ /pubmed/35936256 http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2022.929719 Text en Copyright © 2022 Cui, Lv, Du, Cui and Zhou. https://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 Cui, Jiaxin Lv, Liting Du, Huibo Cui, Zhanling Zhou, Xinlin Language Ability Accounts for Ethnic Difference in Mathematics Achievement |
title | Language Ability Accounts for Ethnic Difference in Mathematics Achievement |
title_full | Language Ability Accounts for Ethnic Difference in Mathematics Achievement |
title_fullStr | Language Ability Accounts for Ethnic Difference in Mathematics Achievement |
title_full_unstemmed | Language Ability Accounts for Ethnic Difference in Mathematics Achievement |
title_short | Language Ability Accounts for Ethnic Difference in Mathematics Achievement |
title_sort | language ability accounts for ethnic difference in mathematics achievement |
topic | Psychology |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9354024/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35936256 http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2022.929719 |
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