The dual processes hypothesis in mathematics performance: Beliefs, cognitive reflection, working memory and reasoning

The Role of Trait and State Mindfulness in Cognitive Performance of Male Adolescents

Purpose

The number of mindfulness intervention projects is continually increasing. Within the educational environment, mindfulness has purported links to well-being, positive behaviour, educational and cognitive performance. Trait mindfulness is related to rational thinking and better performance in cognitive tests, suggesting that innate mindfulness ability contributes to self-regulation ability and thus the efficacy of mindfulness interventions. The current study investigates whether mindfulness is a moderating factor. It examines correlations between cognitive performance and trait mindfulness. The study investigates the influence of trait mindfulness on the ability of students to enter state mindfulness in an attempt to understand the role both types of mindfulness may have on cognitive performance.

Participants and Method

Two-hundred and five male students aged fifteen and sixteen completed the adolescent version of the Mindfulness Awareness Scale, the Cognitive Reflection Test, and the Toronto Mindfulness Scale.

Results

Hierarchical regression analysis found that state mindfulness was a predictor of cognitive reflection ability. ANOVA also found that having either trait or state mindfulness predicted higher cognitive reflection scores, but only state mindfulness had a significant effect on cognitive reflection. Trait mindfulness was not a moderating factor.

Conclusion

Both state and trait aspects of mindfulness ability influence cognitive performance. Those with higher trait mindfulness ability are better able to enter state mindfulness and thus had better cognitive reflection scores. However, where it is possible to induce state mindfulness into those with low trait mindfulness, CRT scores were also higher although not significantly so.

Executive Functions and Improvement of Thinking: An Intervention Program to Enhance Deductive Reasoning Abilities

Empirical and theoretical advances and application to society are moved at different speed. Application work is frequently developed later because it requires the integration of knowledge from different research areas. In the present paper, we integrate literature coming from diverse areas of research in order to design a deductive reasoning intervention, based on the involved executive functions. Executive functions include working memory (WM)’s online executive processes and other off-line functions such as task revising and planning. Deductive reasoning is a sequential thinking process driven by reasoners’ meta-deductive knowledge and goals that requires the construction and manipulation of representations. We present a new theoretical view about the relationship between executive function and higher-level thinking, a critical analysis of the possibilities and limitations of cognitive training, and a metacognitive training procedure on executive functions to improve deductive reasoning. This procedure integrates direct instruction on deduction and meta-deductive concepts (consistency, necessity) and strategies (search for counterexamples and exhaustivity), together with the simultaneous training of WM and executive functions involved: Focus and switch attention, update WM representations, inhibit and revise intuitive responses, and control the emotional stress yielded by tasks. Likewise, it includes direct training of some complex WM tasks that demands people to carry out similar cognitive assignment than deduction. Our training program would be included in the school curriculum and attempts not only to improve deductive reasoning in experimental tasks, but also to increase students’ ability to uncover fallacies in discourse, to automatize some basic logical skills, and to be able to use logical intuitions.

Criterion Validity of Cognitive Reflection for Predicting Job Performance and Training Proficiency: A Meta-Analysis

This article presents a meta-analysis of the validity of cognitive reflection (CR) for predicting job performance and training proficiency. It also examines the incremental validity of CR over cognitive intelligence (CI) for predicting these two occupational criteria. CR proved to be an excellent predictor of job performance and training proficiency, and the magnitude of the true validity was very similar across the two criteria. Results also showed that the type of CR is not a moderator of CR validity. We also found that CR showed incremental variance over CI for the explanation of job performance, although the magnitude of the contribution is small. However, CR shows practically no incremental validity over CI validity in the explanation of training proficiency. Finally, we discuss the implications of these findings for the research and practice of personnel selection.

More Than Growth Mindset: Individual and Interactive Links Among Socioeconomically Disadvantaged Adolescents' Ability Mindsets, Metacognitive Skills, and Math Engagement

This article used self-regulated learning as a theoretical lens to examine the individual and interactive associations between a growth mindset and metacognition on math engagement for adolescent students from socioeconomically disadvantaged schools. Across three longitudinal studies with 207, 897, and 2,325 11- to 15-year-old adolescents, students' beliefs that intelligence is malleable and capable of growth over time only predicted higher math engagement among students possessing the metacognitive skills to reflect upon and be aware of their learning progress. The results suggest that metacognitive skills may be necessary for students to realize their growth mindset. Thus, growth mindsets and metacognitive skills should be promoted together to capitalize on the mutually reinforcing effects of each, especially among students in socioeconomically disadvantaged schools.

Arithmetic Word Problems Revisited: Cognitive Processes and Academic Performance in Secondary School

Solving arithmetic word problems is a complex task that requires individuals to activate their working memory resources, as well as the correct performance of the underlying executive processes involved in order to inhibit semantic biases or superficial responses caused by the problem’s statement. This paper describes a study carried out with 135 students of Secondary Obligatory Education, each of whom solved 5 verbal arithmetic problems: 2 consistent problems, whose mathematical operation (add/subtract) and the verbal statement of the problem coincide, and 3 inconsistent problems, whose required operation is the inverse of the one suggested by the verbal term(s). Measures of reading comprehension, visual–spatial reasoning and deductive reasoning were also obtained. The results show the relationship between arithmetic problems and cognitive measures, as well as the ability of these problems to predict academic performance. Regression analyses confirmed that arithmetic word problems were the only measure with significant power of association with academic achievement in both History/Geography (β = 0.25) and Mathematics (β = 0.23).

Children's Cognitive Reflection Predicts Conceptual Understanding in Science and Mathematics

The Cognitive Reflection Test (CRT) is a widely used measure of adults' propensity to engage in reflective analytic thought. The CRT is strongly predictive of many diverse psychological factors but unsuitable for use with developmental samples. Here, we examined a children's CRT, the CRT-Developmental (CRT-D), and investigated its predictive utility in the domains of science and mathematics. School-age children (N = 152) completed the CRT-D, measures of executive functioning, measures of rational thinking, and measures of vitalist-biology and mathematical-equivalence concepts. CRT-D performance predicted conceptual understanding in both domains after we adjusted for children's age, executive functioning, and rational thinking. These findings suggest that cognitive reflection supports conceptual knowledge in early science and mathematics and, moreover, demonstrate the theoretical and practical importance of children's cognitive reflection. The CRT-D will allow researchers to investigate the development, malleability, and consequences of children's cognitive reflection.

How mathematics anxiety affects students' inflexible perseverance in mathematics problem-solving: Examining the mediating role of cognitive reflection

BACKGROUND

Too many students persevere in relying upon one (sometimes suboptimal) strategy for solving a wide range of problems, even when they know more efficient strategies. Although many studies have mentioned such phenomena, few studies have examined how emotional factors could affect this type of inflexible perseverance in strategy use.

AIMS

To examine whether mathematics anxiety could affect students' inflexible perseverance in strategy use and whether this effect could be mediated by cognitive reflection, which is the ability to engage in deliberate reasoning.

SAMPLE AND METHOD

In Study 1, 164 undergraduate students' (18-22 years) mathematics anxiety, cognitive reflection, and performance in overcoming inflexible perseverance were measured by a questionnaire battery. Structural equation models were used to examine the correlations between these variables. In Study 2, 98 undergraduate freshmen (17-18 years) were assigned to two groups, where one group's mathematics anxiety was temporarily induced by task instructions, while the other group served as a control group. Cognitive reflection and inflexible perseverance of the two groups were compared.

RESULTS

Study 1 showed that mathematics anxiety was negatively correlated with students' performance on overcoming inflexible perseverance, while cognitive reflection mediated such an effect. Study 2 showed that compared to the control group, the experimental group showed lower cognitive reflection, which led to lower performance in overcoming inflexible perseverance.

CONCLUSIONS

Mathematics anxiety was showed to impair students' ability to engage in deliberate reasoning and was associated with inflexible use of strategies. Alleviating students' mathematics anxiety should be considered when promoting students' strategic flexibility.

Repercusiones Multiculturales en el Desarrollo Lingüístico: Efectos en el Rendimiento

Resumen Este trabajo tiene como objetivo verificar las diferencias de rendimiento académico del alumnado de segundo ciclo de Educación Infantil que pertenecen a un contexto multicultural en el que coexisten una lengua oficial (castellano) y un dialecto cultural (darija). La muestra la componen un total de 501 alumnos cristianos y musulmanes del tercer curso a los que se les aplicó un cuestionario que evalúa el grado de adquisición de los aspectos competenciales de las áreas de comunicación y lenguaje, social y motriz. Para el análisis del conjunto de los datos se utilizaron pruebas estadísticas descriptivas y de contraste de variables. Los resultados demuestran como la lengua materna es un factor principal de diferenciación en todas las áreas del desempeño académico en este periodo, destacando las dimensiones comunicativas. Estas diferencias tienen una relación directa con la adhesión identitaria de los musulmanes a un dialecto cultural.

Neurocognitive Signatures of Naturalistic Reading of Scientific Texts: A Fixation-Related fMRI Study

How do students gain scientific knowledge while reading expository text? This study examines the underlying neurocognitive basis of textual knowledge structure and individual readers’ cognitive differences and reading habits, including the influence of text and reader characteristics, on outcomes of scientific text comprehension. By combining fixation-related fMRI and multiband data acquisition, the study is among the first to consider self-paced naturalistic reading inside the MRI scanner. Our results revealed the underlying neurocognitive patterns associated with information integration of different time scales during text reading, and significant individual differences due to the interaction between text characteristics (e.g., optimality of the textual knowledge structure) and reader characteristics (e.g., electronic device use habits). Individual differences impacted the amount of neural resources deployed for multitasking and information integration for constructing the underlying scientific mental models based on the text being read. Our findings have significant implications for understanding science reading in a population that is increasingly dependent on electronic devices.

A New Look to a Classic Issue: Reasoning and Academic Achievement at Secondary School

Higher-order thinking abilities such as abstract reasoning and meaningful school learning occur sequentially. The fulfillment of these tasks demands that people activate and use all of their working memory resources in a controlled and supervised way. The aims of this work were: (a) to study the interplay between two new reasoning measures, one mathematical (Cognitive Reflection Test) and the other verbal (Deductive Reasoning Test), and a third classical visuo-spatial reasoning measure (Raven Progressive Matrices Test); and (b) to investigate the relationship between these measures and academic achievement. Fifty-one 4th grade secondary school students participated in the experiment and completed the three reasoning tests. Academic achievement measures were the final numerical scores in seven basic subjects. The results demonstrated that cognitive reflection, visual, and verbal reasoning are intimately related and predicts academic achievement. This work confirms that abstract reasoning constitutes the most important higher-order cognitive ability that underlies academic achievement. It also reveals the importance of dual processes, verbal deduction and metacognition in ordinary teaching and learning at school.