Rôle de la distraction dans les performances en mathématiques des enfants – MathDistract

In a first series of experiments, we compare performance and strategic variations in third, fifth, and seventh graders from France and from France and Hong Kong under distraction and control conditions. Children only solve arithmetic problems in the control condition whereas they solve arithmetic problems while listening to distracting soundtracks in the distracting conditions. Their performance as well as strategic aspects of this performance are compared across different levels of distraction (control, no-distraction; lower, and higher distracting conditions).

A second series of experiments aimed at identifying factors that contribute to individual differences in sensitivity to distraction. To achieve this end, we used a cross-sequential design to examine how arithmetic performance in a distracting environment is associated with children’s inhibitory and other domain-general abilities,and how this association changes over time. Children from France and Hong Kong are asked to solve arithmetic problems like the previous experiments, also under distracting and non-distracting conditions. Performance in the non-distracting condition serve as a covariate to control for individual differences in arithmetic fluency. Children are also asked to complete a battery of domain-general tasks that assess inhibitory abilities, working memory, and processing speed. First and 3rd graders are recruited and are tested annually for three years. The grades included overlap with two of the grades (3rd and 5th) included in WP 1. Because of differences in

curriculum and math performance between Hong Kong and France, we include a younger cohort (1st grade) to ensure that there is enough variation in arithmetic performance.

The statistical growth model to be fitted to the data provide separate estimates of individual

differences in performance at the commencement of the study and in the rate at which performance

varies across the three years.

The results of the project are very important for the field of arithmetic. In particular, they show how distracting events can have both boosting effects and deleterious effects, depending on the moment when these events occur relative to onset of arithmetic problems. These effects suggest that two types of cognitive processes are involved in arithmetic problem solving. First phasic alert processes enable participant to focus on first stages (e.g., encoding, memory retrieval) of arithmetic processes. Second, executive control processes enable children to improve their arithmetic performance. Increased cognitive growth mostly concern the later. The results are also important in showing how distraction in math can exert its effects via executive control mechanisms, and is most important on strategy execution (less on strategy selection). Fundamentally, and more generally, our results speak to the broad issue of how domain-general and domain-specific processing mechanisms interact to produce performance in a given cognitive activity. The practical significance of these results lie in their pointing to managing learning environments that drive children’s attention to the target task and strengthens their ability to resist interference from non-relevant stimuli.

Findings of this project opens up new venues for future research. These include for examples:

1- How distraction influence math in older children and in other math domains than those investigated here.

2- Do other stimuli-driven distraction (e.g., emotional stimuli) produce the same distraction effects and via the same mechanisms?

3- How can we help children build self-control mechanisms to stabilize their attentional resources during math learning?

4- Do cultural differences found here regarding differences in effects of distraction generalize to other cultures and other cognitive domains?

Pour étudier les mécanismes clés dans les performances en mathématiques des enfants, plusieurs expériences testeront le rôle de la distraction. Dans ces expériences, les enfants accompliront des tâches mathématiques dans différente conditions de distraction. De nouvelles tâches impliquant, entre autres, des mécanismes essentiels du contrôle exécutif (e.g., inhibition) seront utilisées. Les propriétés psychométriques (validité, fiabilité, sensibilité) seront empiriquement établies. De plus, nous testerons l’hypothèse stratégique (i.e., la distraction change les stratégies utilisées, la fréquence avec laquelle les stratégies sont mobilisées, ainsi que la sélection et l’exécution stratégique). Théoriquement, la valeur hautement contributive du présent projet réside dans l’approche mécanique du rôle de la distraction dans les performances en mathématique des enfants.