Conference presentations
Name: Liza Kahwaji
https://carleton.ca/mathlab/people/liza-kahwaji/
Program Info:
In what program are you currently enrolled? Cognitive Science
What year of the program are you currently in? Fourth Year Undergrad
Area of Study / Concentration: Cognition and Psychology
Citation in APA format:
Kahwaji, L., Douglas, H., Rice, J., Yu, S., Merkley, R., LeFevre, J. (2023, July 17-19). What Foundational Numeracy Skills Predict Arithmetic Performance One Year Later in Grades 2-3: Data from the Provincial Numeracy Screening Assessment [Poster Presentation]. CSBBCS Conference, Guelph, ON, Canada. https://www.csbbcs.org/
Plain language abstract:
Children’s abilities to judge the magnitude of numerical symbols (e.g., which is larger?) and their order (e.g., what comes after 2?) are related to their arithmetic skills. Over the first years of school, children seem to gradually move from understanding symbol-quantity (i.e., that 2 represents the quantity * *) to symbol-symbol relations (i.e., that 2 comes before 3). Between kindergarten and grade 4, there is a transition in which order knowledge becomes a better predictor of arithmetic than cardinal knowledge. Here, we used a large provincially representative data set to study this transition. Students in grades 2,3,4 and students that went from grade 2 to 3 and grade 3 to 4, completed arithmetic, number comparison, and order judgment tasks up to four times, from Fall 2021 to Fall 2022, as part of the Provincial Numeracy Screening Assessment (PNSA). The PNSA is a classroom numeracy screening tool developed for the Alberta Ministry of Education. Preliminary analyses suggest that longitudinally, ordering skills were a stronger predictor of growth in arithmetic skills than were comparison skills. In this poster, further analyses of the relations among students’ ordinal, cardinal, and arithmetic knowledge will be used to interpret the PNSA and evaluate models of numeracy development.
Getting started:
How did the idea for this research come about?
Dr. Jo-Anne LeFevre and Dr. Heather Douglas created the Provincial Numeracy Screening Assessment (PNSA) tool, also known as the Early Math Assessment @ School (EMA@School). This is a screener that assesses early numeracy skills used to identify children in need of extra support. I was first interested in how foundational numeracy skills predict arithmetic performance after taking a cognitive development course. With this in mind, Dr. Jo-Anne LeFevre suggested that we use part of the EMA@School data to investigate the numeracy skills I am interested in.
Is this part of a larger project?
The EMA@School is in collaboration with school authorities and researchers at other Canadian universities. The EMA@School is currently an assessment tool used in a larger project, AIM Collective https://www.aimcollective.ca/
Was it for a class?
No
Was this research conducted as part of your Honours/M.Cog./PhD. thesis?
No
How was this project funded? (if applicable)
This was funded through a Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC) Undergraduate Student Research Awards (USRA) and by the AIM Collective (which is funded by Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council – SSHRC).
Collaboration:
Was this research conducted with your supervisor?
Yes, this was conducted under the supervision of Dr. Jo-Anne LeFevre, director of Carleton’s MathLab. Dr. Heather Douglas and Dr. Rebecca Merkley are also co-supervisors in the MathLab.
Was this research conducted with fellow graduate students at Carleton?
Yes – Shuyuan Yu and Jenna Rice.
What program are they in? / What is their area of expertise?
Shuyuan Yu is a postdoctoral researcher with Dr. Jo-Anne LeFevre. Shuyuan’s research investigates children’s mathematical development and learning mechanisms underlying conceptual changes.
Jenna is a master’s student in Cognitive Science under the supervision of Dr. Jo-Anne LeFevre. Jenna is currently investigating summer learning loss in numeracy.
How did this collaboration come about?
Shuyuan and Jenna are both members of Carleton’s MathLab and assist with research related to the EMA@School and AIM Collective.
Was this research conducted with researchers external to Carleton? No
Were there challenges to conducting this research?
The EMA@School project collected a lot of data. A challenge was focusing on only a set of skills and grades as we wanted to convey the message clearly.
How was data collected for this project? (if applicable)
The data used for this poster was collected in collaboration with Alberta Education.
How was data analyzed for this project? (if applicable)
Multiple regression was used to (1) predict arithmetic (addition + subtraction) from number comparison and ordering skills at the same time and (2) if year 1 number comparison or year 1 ordering skills are a better predictor of year 2 addition OR subtraction, after controlling for year 1 addition OR subtraction?
Where did you present your work? The Canadian Society for Brain, Behaviour, and Cognitive Science (CSBBCS)
Why did you choose this conference/colloquium/symposium?
This conference highlights a range of research from cognitive science, psychology, and neuroscience. CSBBCS was a great place to present this poster to researchers working in such diverse fields.
Was your work presented as a poster and/or talk? Poster
How would you describe your overall experience presenting your work at this conference?
This conference was a great experience. I was able to interact with experts in the fields as well as those only interested to learn more about my poster.
Were there any challenges in presenting your work?
As this was my first time at CSBBCS, I did not know what to expect. However, once I was there, I felt confident in presenting my work as the conference was such a positive experience.
Will you be making any changes to your research project based on feedback received? Currently, no changes are being made.