Inhibition and Fraction Arithmetic: Insights from Heat-map Strategy Reports

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eScholarship UC item 1jm8m597.pdf (266.48 KB)

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https://escholarship.org/uc/item/1jm8m597#main

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http://hdl.handle.net/11603/25176

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UMBC Psychology Department
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2022

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conference papers and proceedings
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Citation of Original Publication

Kaur, F., Fitzsimmons, C. J, Iwai, Y., Taber, J. M, Thompson, C. A, & Godwin, K. E. (2022). Inhibition and Fraction Arithmetic: Insights from Heat-map Strategy Reports. Proceedings of the Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society, 44. Retrieved from https://escholarship.org/uc/item/1jm8m597

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Abstract

Proficiency in math is critically important given its implications for education and daily life (e.g., finances, health). However, math is a challenging subject, and proficiency requires a complex interplay of content knowledge and general cognitive processes, including Executive Function (EF). In this exploratory study, we used heat maps to examine whether participants' self-reported attention to strategy-specific components of fraction arithmetic equations (i.e., operations, numerators, denominators) was related to their EF and task performance. Our results indicated that participants with stronger EF (indexed by a numerical stroop task) obtained higher fraction arithmetic scores and were also more likely to attend to strategy-specific components in the fraction problems. Additionally, a positive correlation was found between participants’ selection of strategy-specific components and their fraction arithmetic accuracy.