Little is known about the conscious experience of internal bodily sensations in preschool-aged children. Given that preschoolers are in the most rapid phase of brain development, and display profound ...emotional development, it was the aim of the present study to establish an adapted interoceptive accuracy paradigm and to investigate associations between sociodemographic (age, sex) and emotional variables with interoceptive accuracy. Forty-nine children (aged 4–6 years) completed the jumping jack paradigm (JJP), a heartbeat tracking paradigm, which includes a noninvasive physical perturbation via performing jumping jacks for 10 s. An interoceptive accuracy score was based on the comparison between self-reported and objectively recorded heart rate prior to and after completion of jumping jacks. Children also completed validated measures for emotion recognition and emotion regulation. Children's objectively recorded heart rate significantly increased after the JJP by 20 bpm on average. There was a positive relationship between reactivity on self-reported heart rate and objectively recorded heart rate increase. The derived scores for interoceptive accuracy increased with age, suggesting older children to report more self-reported heart rate change than objectively recorded, but were unrelated to children's sex or BMI. While emotion recognition and regulation significantly increased with age, the interoceptive accuracy score was unrelated to emotion recognition, but marginally associated to emotion regulation. Children with higher interoceptive accuracy score (i.e., self-reporting more heart rate change than objectively recorded) received lower emotion regulation score. The present study is the first to depict a novel behavioral paradigm to assess interoceptive accuracy in preschool-aged children.
•A novel paradigm to assess interoceptive accuracy in preschool-aged children (4–6 years)•The new Jumping Jack Paradigm includes a noninvasive physiological perturbation via performing jumping jacks.•Preschoolers appear to be able to consciously detect changes in their heart rate following the jumping jacks.•Interoceptive accuracy score was also marginally associated with children's emotion regulation.
The number line estimation task is frequently used to measure children's numerical magnitude understanding. It is unclear whether the resulting straight, horizontal, left‐to‐right‐oriented estimate ...patterns indicate task constraints or children's intuitive number–space mapping. Three‐ to six‐year‐old children (N = 72, Mage = 4.89, 56% girls, 94% German citizenship) were asked to explain the meaning of numbers to a teddy by laying out a rope and attaching cards showing non‐symbolic numerosities (dots) to it. Most children intuitively created straight, horizontal, and left‐to‐right‐oriented representations. Characteristics of the line correlated with age, mathematical competencies, and home numeracy. This demonstrates the usefulness of the number line estimation task for assessing how children intuitively map numbers onto space.
•A meta-analysis on the association of SWB and academic achievement was conducted.•The correlation between academic achievement and SWB was statistically significant.•Low-achieving students do not ...necessarily report low well-being.•High-achieving students do not automatically have high well-being.
Is the subjective well-being (SWB) of high-achieving students generally higher compared to low achieving students? In this meta-analysis, we investigated the association between SWB and academic achievement by synthesizing 151 effect sizes from 47 studies with a total of 38,946 participants. The correlation between academic achievement and SWB was small to medium in magnitude and statistically significant at r = 0.164, 95% CI 0.113, 0.216. The correlation was stable across various levels of demographic variables, different domains of SWB, and was stable across alternative measures of academic achievement or SWB. Overall, the results suggest that low-achieving students do not necessarily report low well-being, and that high-achieving students do not automatically experience high levels of well-being.
•We evaluated a game for fraction learning.•Students in the fraction estimation game groups improved in the trained problems.•Plausible age effects emerged.•No transfer to other fractions, fraction ...magnitude comparison, fraction arithmetic.•Fraction games need to be complemented by more direct instruction.
Fractions are hard to understand for students. According to Siegler’s integrated theory, magnitude understanding is central to numerical development. Whole-number magnitude understanding can be improved by serious games that include practicing mapping numbers onto number lines or similar one-dimensional visuospatial representations. These games were effective even when they did not include direct instruction on whole numbers. Previous studies have also evaluated whether similar number line estimation (NLE) interventions improve fraction learning. We contribute to this literature by evaluating how the catch-the-monster game with fractions affects NLE, magnitude understanding, and arithmetic with fractions in a randomized controlled pretest–intervention–posttest design. The game included NLE with feedback but no direct instruction. A sample of 188 fifth- to eighth-graders participated in a fraction number line game condition, a scaffolded fraction number line games condition, or an active control condition. In fifth- and sixth-graders, participation in the intervention improved the trained measure of fraction understanding (NLE on 0–1 line) but left unchanged two untrained measures of fraction understanding (NLE on 0–5 lines and fraction comparison) and a measure of fraction arithmetic. Seventh- and eighth-graders showed no intervention effects. The lack of transfer in fifth- and sixth-graders indicates that gamified NLE interventions can complement but not replace more direct instruction on fraction concepts and fraction arithmetic.
•Number line estimation (NLE) correlated robustly with mathematical achievement.•We statistically controlled for classroom-, person-, and trial-level variables.•Subpopulations of students showed ...meaningful differences in their NLE.•The NLE task with fractions captured differences in mathematical achievement.•The NLE task can help to predict and monitor students’ mathematical achievement.
The number line estimation task is an often-used measure of numerical magnitude understanding. The task also correlates substantially with broader measures of mathematical achievement. This raises the question of whether the task would be a useful component of mathematical achievement tests and instruments to diagnose dyscalculia or mathematical giftedness and whether a stand-alone version of the task can serve as a short screener for mathematical achievement. Previous studies on the relation between number line estimation accuracy and broader mathematical achievement were limited in that they used relatively small nonrepresentative samples and usually did not account for potentially confounding variables. To close this research gap, we report findings from a population-level study with nearly all Luxembourgish ninth-graders (N = 6484). We used multilevel regressions to test how a standardized mathematical achievement test relates to the accuracy in number line estimation on bounded number lines with whole numbers and fractions. We also investigated how these relations were moderated by classroom characteristics, person characteristics, and trial characteristics. Mathematical achievement and number line estimation accuracy were associated even after controlling for potentially confounding variables. Subpopulations of students showed meaningful differences in estimation accuracy, which can serve as benchmarks in future studies. Compared with the number line estimation task with whole numbers, the number line estimation task with fractions was more strongly related to mathematical achievement in students across the entire mathematical achievement spectrum. These results show that the number line estimation task is a valid and useful tool for diagnosing and monitoring mathematical achievement.
