[MATHLINK] Lightning Talks Tomorrow, July 29

[MCLS Trainee]

Dear MCLS Community,

Please join us for the first lightning talks of the 2021 MCLS Online
program *tomorrow, July 29 at 9am EST // 2pm BST*! We'll be hearing from
*eight* MCLS members in quick, 5-minute presentations. The  included at the
bottom of this email.

We will see the following presentations:
*Cantika Sasono (Undergraduate Student, University of California Berkeley)*
*Math Affect & Themes in Math Discourse*

*Tamás Szűcs (Master’s Student,** Eötvös Lóránd University Budapest)*
*Problems of reliability: Examining the relationship between the comparison
distance effect and the priming distance effect*

*Thi Mai Lien Le (Doctoral Student, KU Leuven)*
*Transparent number-naming system gives only limited advantage for
preschooler's numerical development*

*Chuyan Qu (Doctoral Student, University of Pennsylvania)*
*Approximate multiplication in young children prior to math instruction*

*Birgül Damla BABER ELBISTAN (Doctoral Student, Göttingen University)*
*On the development of planning ability in problem solving from grades 5
through 7*

*Yarden Gliksman (Faculty, Ruppin Academic Center)*
*BGu-MF: a new tool to evaluate math fluency*

*Colette Duncan (Doctoral Student, Ulster University)*
*Mathematics in Pre-term Pre-schoolers*

*Vanessa Cerda (Doctoral Student, The University of Texas at San Antonio)*
*The effect of arithmetic problem size across a bilingual's languages*

Information to join the call is below. Note that this year, we'll be using
one room which can be joined at any time from the link
https://tinyurl.com/MCLS2021 (Passcode: MCLS2021).

------------------------------
MCLS Trainee is inviting you to a scheduled Zoom meeting.

Topic: MCLS 2021
Time: Jul 29, 2021 9:00 AM Eastern Time (US and Canada)

Join Zoom Meeting
https://tinyurl.com/MCLS2021

Meeting ID: 225 833 7242
Passcode: MCLS2021
------------------------------

Finally, the last day for *associate members* to vote in our run-off
election for Communications Chair is tomorrow!
https://pitt.co1.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_2shj6DCHKpaB9Hw
<https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__the-2Dmcls.us20.list-2Dmanage.com_track_click-3Fu-3D52a664da881817eed812437d0-26id-3D3f8dad0ae4-26e-3Df13dd00558&d=DwMFaQ&c=slrrB7dE8n7gBJbeO0g-IQ&r=VayoKepUaVSDRZHcUhnIjw&m=I74bdBd6GSQWQTjfM4PLntxnNuyRjhlj49eSSJXBGeU&s=FIqXCBMGxajUZstUJlYsx7OSTv94o9vF0PABOFKc1Jc&e=>

Be sure to mark your calendars for the following upcoming events:
*Friday, August 6 (WORKSHOP 11am-1pm EST // 4pm-6pm BST)* -
Non-/Alt-Academic Jobs: Kelly Escobar, Aubrey Francisco, Eben Witherspoon,
Fabien Van Den Berg, Priya Silverstein
*Thursday, August 12 (9:00-10:00am EST // 2:00-3:00pm BST) *- The interplay
of vocabulary, reading competence and early number concept development:
Linguistic perspectives on early numeracy in South Africa
(Organizer: Hanrie Bezuidenhout)
*Friday, August 6 (WORKSHOP 11am-1pm EST // 4pm-6pm BST)* - Applying for
Academic Jobs: Karina Hamamouche, Mojtaba Soltanlou, Eric Wilkey, (others
TBA)

Thanks so much and we can't wait to see you all again!
The MCLS Conference Organizing Committee


Thursday, July 29 9am EST
*Lightning Talks*
Organizer: MCLS Conference Organizing Committee & Trainee Board

*Presenters*
*Cantika Sasono (Undergraduate Student, University of California Berkeley)*
*Math Affect & Themes in Math Discourse*

What are the most frequent emotion words used when talking about math? How
charged are these emotion words? Investigating the emotions surrounding how
we talk about math can help us understand the most frequent emotions
associated with it, and thus have implications for reforming math education
in such a way that acknowledges the variety of emotions students may
experience when learning math. We propose using a large naturalistic
dataset to explore the frequency of emotion words and their levels of
arousal when related to math. The dataset is Complete Public Reddit
Comments Corpus compiled by Jason Baumgartner, and is an archive of Reddit
Comments spanning October 2007 to May 2015. Reddit is a platform that
allows people to build a sense of community and share personally motivated
stories, making it a rich naturalistic dataset. We plan to count the
frequency of emotion words and their levels of arousal in math-related
comments. Furthermore, we plan on conducting a thematic analysis to
determine the significance of the themes investigated by John et al (2020).
Themes provide insight regarding common experiences with math, such as
consistently negative experiences. We plan on filtering out non-math
related comments by identifying subreddits that are related to math, such
as r/math and r/lifeofamathteacher, which are both subreddit communities
that discuss math and being a math teacher, respectively. Other such
subreddits will be identified by manually searching the complete list of
subreddits provided by the Reddit website. Additionally, we plan on
creating a comprehensive list of emotion words to search for by utilizing
the WordNet-Affect Lexicon, a hand-curate collection of emotion-related
words.

*Tamás Szűcs (Master’s Student,** Eötvös Lóránd University Budapest)*
*Problems of reliability: Examining the relationship between the comparison
distance effect and the priming distance effect*

In the number comparison task, the correlation between the comparison
distance effect (better performance with larger distance between two
numbers, CDE) and the priming distance effect (better performance with
smaller distance between the prime and target numbers, PDE) has been
studied before. The analogue number system explanation of numerical
cognition predicts a strong correlation, while the alternative, discrete
semantic system account does not. Previously no correlation was found,
however, previous studies did not consider that the correlation coefficient
can be attenuated by low reliability. Low reliability can decrease a
potentially high correlation coefficient. In a new measurement, we found
that the reliability of the PDE was practically zero, therefore, previous
results cannot be interpreted as evidence against the ANS account. In order
to test the two models, we need a reliable measure of the PDE. The goal of
the present study was to evaluate whether the reliability of the PDE could
be improved either by using a modified paradigm or by applying alternative
data analysis approaches such as bootstrapping and multiple linear
regression. Our results showed that while employing various statistical
tools to filter out potential noise did not improve the reliability,
increasing the number of trials can enhance reliability, although multiple
sessions with several cumulated hours are needed to get a reasonable
split-half correlation with the currently used comparison task paradigms.

*Thi Mai Lien Le (Doctoral Student, KU Leuven)*
*Transparent number-naming system gives only limited advantage for
preschooler's numerical development*

Several cross-sectional studies have suggested that the transparency of the
number-naming system of East Asian languages (Chinese, Japanese)
facilitates children's numerical development. The Vietnamese number-naming
system also makes the base-10 system very explicit (eleven is "ten-one,"
and thirty is "three-ten"). In contrast, French includes teen words (eleven
to sixteen) and ten words (twenty to ninety) that make their counting
systems less transparent. The main question is: To what extent does a
language's number-naming system impact preschoolers' numerical development?
Our study participants comprised 104 Vietnamese and 104 French-speaking
Belgian children between 3½ and 5½ years of age and their parents. We
tested the children on eight numerical tasks (counting, advanced counting,
enumeration, Give-N, number-word comparison, collection comparison,
addition, and approximate addition) and some general cognitive abilities
(reasoning ability and letter span). The parents completed a questionnaire
on the frequency with which they stimulated their child's numeracy and
literacy at home. The results indicated that Vietnamese children
outperformed Belgian children only in counting. However, neither group
differed in other symbolic or non-symbolic abilities, although Vietnamese
parents tended to stimulate their child at home slightly more than Belgian
parents. We concluded that the Vietnamese number-naming system's
transparency led to faster acquisition of basic counting for preschoolers
but did not support other more advanced numerical skills or non-symbolic
numerical abilities. In addition, both transparent number-naming systems
and home numeracy influence young children's counting development.

*Chuyan Qu (Doctoral Student, University of Pennsylvania)*
*Approximate multiplication in young children prior to math instruction*

Children have an untrained ability to approximately calculate using their
approximate number system (ANS). For example, children can mentally double
or halve a large array of discrete objects. Here, we ask whether children
can perform a true multiplication operation, flexibly attending to both the
multiplier and multiplicand, prior to formal multiplication instruction. We
presented 5 to 8 year-old children with non-symbolic (dot arrays) or
symbolic (Arabic numerals) multiplicands ranging from 2 to 12, and
non-symbolic multipliers ranging from 2 to 8. Children compared the
imagined product to a visible comparison quantity. During feedback sessions
children calculated with multipliers of 2, 5, and 8. During non-feedback
testing children were given novel multipliers (3, 4, and 6). Children
performed with above-chance accuracy on both non-symbolic and symbolic
approximate multiplication, and their performance was modulated by the
ratio between the imagined product and the comparison quantity. Children
who could not solve any single-digit symbolic multiplication equations
(e.g., 2 × 3), on a basic math test, were nevertheless successful on both
of our approximate multiplication tasks, indicating children have an
intuitive sense of multiplication that emerges independently of
multiplication instruction. Non-symbolic multiplication performance
mediated the relation between children’s Weber fraction and symbolic math
abilities, suggesting a pathway by which the ANS contributes to children’s
emerging symbolic math competence. These findings may inform future
educational interventions that allow children to utilize their basic
arithmetic intuition as a scaffold to facilitate symbolic math learning

*Birgül Damla BABER ELBISTAN (Doctoral Student, Göttingen University)*
*On the development of planning ability in problem solving from grades 5
through 7*

Planning ability is considered an important feature for successful
problem-solving in mathematics which should develop over the years at
school. With the help of the Tower of London (TOL) test, which has been
developed to measure planning ability, the effectiveness of executive
functions for problem-solving in different degrees of complexity is
investigated with N=223 students at secondary school in grades five, six,
and seven. In the five and six move problem sections the planning skills
increased; in fact, a significant difference depending on the youngest and
the oldest age is showing (p < .05). However, no statistically significant
difference is found between the planning with respect to gender (p > .05).

*Yarden Gliksman (Faculty, Ruppin Academic Center)*
*BGu-MF: a new tool to evaluate math fluency*

At elementary schools many resources are invested in teaching basic
mathematical operations, and retrieval of arithmetic facts. Arithmetic
facts include addition and subtraction exercises (up to 20) and
multiplication and division exercises according to the multiplication
table. Math fluency is a basic skill that define as the efficiency of
solving simple arithmetic problems accurately and quickly. Surprisingly,
there are only a few tools to assess math fluency, and they are based on
paper and pencil tests. The current lecture would present a new
computerized tool to assess math fluency. The task includes random
exercises, based on basic mathematical operations, and its length 3
minutes. Elementary school and university students performed the task. Math
fluency was assessed by accuracy rates, response times, and the number of
performed exercises. Results were high reliability in the computerized test
and validity with the math fluency pencil and paper test. The developmental
trajectory of math fluency in elementary school would be discussed.

*Colette Duncan (Doctoral Student, Ulster University)*
*Mathematics in Pre-term Pre-schoolers*

There are numerous reasons why a child may struggle with mathematics,
including living in a lower socioeconomic environment or not having English
as your first language (Harding et al., 2012). Another risk factor for poor
mathematical attainment is being born very preterm (VP, < 32 weeks
gestation; Simms et al., 2015). Comparing VP children with full term peers,
the most substantial identified educational difficulty is consistently in
mathematics (Simms et al., 2013). The time spent learning in the home
environment before entering school is a critical period for typically born
children (Fox et al., 2010), and currently there is a lack of research
focusing on the underlying mechanisms that may account for the difficulties
that VP children experience in mathematics, such as environmental
influences (Landry et al., 2003; Wocadlo & Rieger, 2007). The current study
forms one of four phases of a larger project informing a case-control study
with parents of VP pre-schoolers. The aims of this pilot study will be to
assess if an online parent-child interaction observation paradigm is
appropriate, feasible and will produce data with sufficient variation. This
pilot study will use virtual observation methodology to assess parent-child
interactions in the home environment whilst playing with mathematics
related toys. These observations will be coded for three major aspects of
scaffolding that predict academic skills in mathematics; specifically,
parents cognitive, emotional and autonomy support towards their child.
Participants will be 10 (N=10) 3-4 year old typically developing full-term
pre-schoolers and their parent/guardian.

*Vanessa Cerda (Doctoral Student, The University of Texas at San Antonio)*
*The effect of arithmetic problem size across a bilingual's languages*

Most bilinguals learn math facts, like multiplication tables, through
verbal rehearsal in one language, and typically prefer to do math using
that language. Behavioral studies have shown that bilinguals are faster and
more accurate at retrieving arithmetic facts in the language in which they
learned them (LA+) than their other language (LA-). Additionally, the
well-known problem size effect leads to better performance on small
problems than large problems. Previous studies with monolinguals reported
that problems presented in unfamiliar formats elicit exaggerated effects of
problem size. Therefore, we hypothesized that a bilingual’s weaker,
unfamiliar language for arithmetic (i.e., LA-) would have an exaggerated
effect of problem size compared to the more familiar language. In
Experiment 1, event-related potentials (ERPs), response times, and accuracy
were measured as balanced Spanish-English bilingual adults verified the
correctness of spoken single-digit multiplications presented in LA+ or LA-.
In Experiment 2, interstimulus intervals were shortened to increase
difficulty and promote differences in processing across languages. A main
effect of Problem Size was present in behavior for both tasks, but a
language difference was only present in a follow-up study in which
participants were asked to verbally produce multiplication solutions. For
the ERPs, differences across languages were only observed for Experiment 2.
At the second operand, LA- elicited a problem size effect, whereas LA+ did
not. At the solution, a smaller P300 was elicited to large problems only in
LA-. Our results suggest that subtle language differences only arise for
the most difficult problems in the weaker language.