COMPARISONS OF CHILDRENS COGNITIVE REPRESENTATION OF NUMBER - CHINA, FRANCE, JAPAN, KOREA, SWEDEN, AND THE UNITED-STATES

Cross-national comparisons of mathematics achievement have shown diffe rences in favour of Asian students. This study examined the idea that the superior mathematics performance of students from Japan, Korea, an d China may be due, in part, to differences in cognitive representatio n of number that is affected by numerical lanbuage characteristics dif ferentiating Asian and non-Asian language groups. First-graders from t he people's Republic of China, Japan, Korea, France, Sweden, and the U nited States were asked to construct various numbers using Base 10 blo cks. Chinese Japanese, and Korean children showed a preference for usi ng a construction of tens and ones to show numbers; place value appear ed to be clearly represented in those constructions. French, Swedish, and US children, in contrast, showed a preference for using a collecti on of units, suggesting that they represent number as a grouping of co unted objects. More Asian-language speakers than non-Asian-language sp eakers were also able to make two correct constructions for each numbe r, which suggests greater flexibility of mental number manipulation. T hus, the unique characteristics of the Asian number language system ma y facilitate the teaching and learning of mathematics, especially comp utation, for speakers of those languages.