Underlying mechanisms of spatial-mathematical associations among primary school children

Abstract

The present study examined the roles of different spatial skills in mathematical outcomes and the underlying mechanisms among primary children in a longitudinal study with two time points. Among a sample of 348 Grade 3 and 4 children participated at Time 1, general and unique spatial skills (spatial scaling and mental rotation) predicted general mathematics ability. Proportional reasoning partially mediated the relationship between spatial scaling and whole number line estimation, which further predicted fraction number line estimation and general mathematic performance. Missing term problem partially mediated between the relationship of mental rotation and general mathematics performance. Among the 139 children remained at Time 2, spatial scaling predicted the growth in proportional reasoning. The results shed light on the underlying mechanisms involved in the relationships between different spatial skills and mathematics outcomes in cross-sectional and longitudinal means, which help to clarify some ambiguity of existing literature on spatialmathematical relationship, as well as to provide insights on the development of intervention strategies.