[MATHLINK] MCLS Online September 10

[MCLS Trainee]

Dear MCLS Community,

Looking forward to seeing you tomorrow for our next symposium, “*Unpacking
the Association between Spatial and Mathematical Thinking: Investigations
about Directional and Causal Effects*” at *9am EST//2pm BST*. Presenters
will be Yunfeng He (Post-doctoral researcher, University of Tübingen),
Ilyse Resnick (Assistant Professor of Learning Sciences, University of
Canberra), Katie Gilligan (Lecturer Developmental Psychology, University of
Surrey), and Tobias Kahl (PhD student, University of Basel). A full
abstract is below. As a reminder, please join us using the following link;
the password is MCLS2020: https://pitt.zoom.us/j/98288752314

Please also remember to join us for our upcoming talks!
*Friday, September 18* *Neural Development of Symbolic Math Knowledge from
Childhood to Young Adulthood*
*Thursday, September 24* *Early intervention: Finger counting, patterning,
working memory, and number games*
*Friday, October 2* Flash talks and posters

Finally, a notice to trainees: Please let us know how we can support you in
this upcoming term! Please feel free to email any of the other training
board members, email MCLStrainee at gmail.com, or DM the twitter account.
We’re happy to hold, host, or organize some kind of goal-setting session,
PD (for academic track/non-academic track/navigating between them, grants,
social media and engagement, research-practice-policy partnerships,
teaching, etc.), varied kinds of workshops (stats, project design,
teaching, etc.), or just a chance to unwind and talk about
non-"professional" things (play games, have a drink, talk about life,
politics, love lives, or navigating relationships with advisors, etc.).

Thanks!
MCLS Training Board

*Synoptic abstract:*
Spatial and mathematical thinking are closely linked across development.
This conclusion builds on work connecting students’ spatial abilities to
their later entry into and success in science, technology, engineering, and
mathematics (the so-called STEM) disciplines (e.g., Kell, Lubinski, Benbow,
& Steiger, 2013; Shea, Lubinski & Benbow, 2001). In line with these
findings, several correlational studies indicated robust relations between
spatial skills and mathematical performance in children and adults (for an
overview, Mix & Cheng, 2012). Yet, the causal nature of this relation is
not clear as of today. One seminal study indicated that spatial skills may
help children to represent numbers more accurately which in turn increases
mathematical performance (Gunderson, Ramirez, Beilock, & Levine, 2012).
Specifically, it was found that children with higher spatial abilities
represent numbers on a more linear mental number line. In such a numerical
representation, numbers are mentally represented on a left-to-right
continuum and this representation has often been investigated by measuring
participants’ number line estimations or SNARC (Spatial-Numerical
Association of Response Codes) effects. The present symposium aims to
qualify previous studies about underlying mechanisms and will deepen our
understanding of directional and causal effects in the correlation between
space and mathematics. The first study (Yunfeng He, Post-doctoral
researcher, University of Tübingen) investigates relations between the
SNARC effect and mathematical performance using a sample of 165
mathematically gifted children and typically developing children from
China. Interestingly, the study provides no support of a difference in
children’s SNARC effects on the basis of classification as mathematically
“gifted” even though children differed with respect to their mathematical
proficiency. The second study (Ilyse Resnick, Assistant Professor of
Learning Sciences, University of Canberra) examines potential mechanisms
underlying the relation between magnitude estimation and mathematical
achievement in samples from Australia and the United States. Findings
indicate that this relation is mediated by children’s ability to develop an
accurate spatial representation of magnitude that can be flexibly and
proportionally scaled. The third presentation (Katie Gilligan, Lecturer
Developmental Psychology, University of Surrey) will increase our
understanding about potential causal relations between space and
mathematics by presenting results from a recent meta-analysis. More
concretely, the authors included 28 studies investigating spatial training
and potential transfer effects to mathematical learning and performance.
Finally, the fourth presentation (Tobias Kahl, PhD student, University of
Basel) will extend previous longitudinal studies that have often focused on
investigating how early spatial skills are related to later mathematical
abilities. Using a cross-lagged-panel design, the authors investigate
bidirectional relations between spatial skills, executive functions, and
mathematical achievement in a sample of 76 Swiss children. Overall, the
present symposium combines several methodological approaches, samples with
different nationalities, statistical analyses techniques in order to
increase our understanding about the relation between spatial and
mathematical thinking. Implications for teaching and learning mathematics
will be discussed.