تفاوت SES در فراشناخت کودکان جوان در زمینه حل مسئله ریاضی

This investigation examines socioeconomic (SES) differences in young children’s development of key aspects of metacognition and related language. The participants were 102 children ranging in age from 4 years 0 months to 5 years 11 months in five daycare centers located in New York City. Metacognitive abilities and language were observed as children engaged in an individually administered clinical interview concerning mathematical problem solving. The results indicate that the ability to describe thinking and explain ideas is stronger in the upper-SES group than the middle- or lower-SES groups. The findings also indicate that all the SES groups, and children of both ages, show little awareness of mistakes and adaptability without adult assistance. The capacity to express thinking was found to increase with age during early childhood. The results suggest that young children begin to employ rudimentary forms of metacognition before the onset of formal schooling. Implications for education are discussed.

This study focuses primarily on potential socioeconomic status (SES) differences in metacognition during the course of young children’s mathematical problem solving. The study also aims to shed light on the development of metacognition in 4- and 5-year-olds.

There appear to be few SES differences in the three aspects of metacognition that develop slowly during the years of early childhood and in the frequency and kinds of language employed in the clinical interview. Yet the differences that do emerge are important: advantaged children show somewhat more facility in describing thought and explaining ideas than do their less advantaged peers. These metacognitive and verbal skills may be a significant asset in two ways. They may help children to learn school mathematics. They may also lead teachers to conclude that children who can describe thinking and explain ideas are more mathematically competent than children who are less articulate. Our work suggests two possible courses of action for educators. One is to stress education in mathematical metacognition for all children. Schools can help to promote metacognition in the preschool (ages 4 and 5) and primary (ages 6, 7, and 8) years by explicitly helping children — especially less advantaged children — to recognize mistakes, to change inefficient or incorrect strategies, and to talk about their thinking. Education in metacognition should be a key part of the curriculum. The educational focus should in a sense not be on mathematics as a separate topic, but on thinking about mathematics. A second course of action is to help teachers realize that despite their inability to express thinking and explain ideas, young children nevertheless possess considerable mathematical competence. The same children who display relatively low levels of metacognitive ability are able to perform rather well on key mathematical tasks, displaying useful strategies to solve addition and subtraction problems (Ginsburg et al., 2001). In brief, the system of education can help young children develop their budding mathematical metacognition and can help teachers appreciate inarticulate children’s underlying mathematical competence.