Contributions of computational fluency to cross-national differences in arithmetical reasoning abilities

To test the hypothesis that American students have an advantage over East A sian students in arithmetical reasoning once computational abilities and IQ are controlled, 237 U.S. and 218 Chinese college students took arithmetica l computational and reasoning tests, along with IQ and spatial abilities te sts. Significant national differences favoring the Chinese students were fo und for all but the spatial test. After controlling for IQ and computationa l fluency, the Chinese advantage on the arithmetical reasoning tests was st ill significant but substantively smaller in magnitude. A similar pattern w as observed for a sample of 55 U.S. and 80 Chinese high school students. Th e results, though not fully consistent with the hypothesis, are consistent with the position that the East Asian advantage in computational abilities contributes to the advantage in arithmetical reasoning.