Richard Wong - Edge Hill University

Dr Wong Kwok Shing, Richard Dept. of Early Childhood Education, Hong Kong Institute of Education, Hong Kong-China

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What do Hong Kong (HKG) early childhood practitioners teach and what types of activities do they employ in the classroom? Do HKG teachers help young children build a solid foundation for future maths learning?

Past century: Asia has looked to the West （超英趕美, literally ‘surpass Britain, catch up with the US’）  The latest PISA results in Mathematics: the top three economies/ countries are all in Asia. 

Economy or country

Mean

SD

Shanghai-China Singapore Hong Kong-China The United Kingdom The United States OECD (the average)

613 573 561 494 481 494

101 105 96 95 90 92

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Looks reaffirming But greater variation across students in the top-performing economies or countries Equity issue: ◦ A higher proportion of students scoring at level 5 or above in the top-performing economies/ countries ◦ What does this imply?

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Past studies: ◦ Greater intellectual capacity of Asian students? ◦ Superior mathematics education in Asia? (see Leung, 2000) ◦ More demanding parents in Asia (See Chen & Stevenson, 1995; Kwok & Lytton, 1996; Leung, 1999) ◦ Learners hold high standards for themselves (See Chen & Stevenson, 1995; Kwok & Lytton, 1996)

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What is left to be explored...???

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What applies to the primary school setting may not apply to the kindergarten setting How do HKG preschool teachers help to lay a solid foundation for young children to learn mathematics? ◦ What methods do they use in teaching maths? ◦ Do they teach the skills that are critical for children’s future maths abilities? ◦ What is the content covered at different age levels? ◦ How much do they believe in nurture in contributing to a child’s maths ability?

Particulars Groups*

Frequency

BEd Yr 1 BEd Yr 2 BEd Yr 3 PGDE Yr 1

Percent 25 23 20 24

27.2 25.0 21.7 26.1

62 25

67.4 27.2

5

5.5

14 30 21 27

15.2 32.6 22.8 29.3

Academic qualifications Higher Diploma in ECE Degrees (non-ECE) Others

Level of the children taught 2-3 yrs old 3-4 yrs old

4-5 yrs old 5-6 yrs old

* Years of teaching experience: 4.41 years (SD = 4.6)

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Demographic information 17 items focusing on three types of activities: child-centered, teacher-centered, activities favoured by psychologists 36 items: specific maths content Other items: teachers’ motivation in learning maths, teachers’ beliefs, etc.

Drilling? ‘Traditional’ approach

Emphasis of teacher educators

Emphasis of dev. psychologists

Forward counting Teacher-centred demonstration Homework Statistics Relate to real life Puzzles Backward counting Games Self-exploration Group-exploration Patterns Use of story Use of picture books Missing numbers Forward digit span Analogical reasoning Backward digit span

Mean (0-4) SD 3.18 0.76 2.88 0.80 2.67 2.66 2.5 2.24 2.08 2.05 1.99 1.98 1.97 1.84 1.72 1.4 1.36 1.07 1.01

0.93 0.94 0.91 1.09 1.14 1.04 0.90 1.01 1.07 0.88 0.95 1.05 0.99 0.94 1.05

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Factorial analysis of variance (p < .05) No main effect for group except for group

exploration

No main effect for age of the children except for homework, backward counting, statistics,

patterns and missing number 

No interaction between group and age of the children

Items

2-3 yrs old

3-4 yrs old

4-5 yrs old 5-6 yrs old

Counting from 1 to 10

100

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-

-

Counting from 11 to 20

50

63.33

100

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Counting from 21 to 30

21.43

33.33

95.24

88.89

Counting from 31 to 50

7.14

16.67

80.95

92.59

Counting from 51 to 100

0

6.67

42.86

77.78

Arabic numbers: 1 to 10

100

96.67

100

-

21.43

30

95.24

92.59

0

0

52.38

88.89

7.14

10

71.43

100

0

0

14.29

14.81

Chinese numbers

57.14

43.33

90.48

88.89

English numbers

92.86

76.67

95.23

88.89

Arabic numbers: 11 to 30 Arabic numbers: 31 to 100 Odd and even numbers Prime numbers

Items

2-3 yrs old

3-4 yrs old

4-5 yrs old

5-6 yrs old

Set 5

28.57

20

80.95

100

Set 10

21.43

3.33

42.86

100

Set 15

0

0

4.76

44.44

Set 20

0

0

0

29.63

Set 21 or above

0

0

0

11.11

Items 3+5

2-3 yrs old

3-4 yrs old

4-5 yrs old

5-6 yrs old

7.14

13.33

47.62

100

12 + 6

0

0

4.76

40.74

3 + 2 +2

0

0

0

66.67

12 + 10 + 2

0

0

0

14.81

5-3

0

0

19.05

96.30

12 - 3

0

0

4.76

33.33

10 - 2 - 3

0

0

0

48.15

20 - 10 - 2

0

0

0

14.81

Items

2-3 yrs old

3-4 yrs old

4-5 yrs old

5-6 yrs old

Date

100

93.33

100

-

Size

100

100

-

-

92.86

100

-

-

100

100

-

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64.29

83.33

90.48

100

57.14

73.33

85.71

92.59

Direction

0

6.67

4.76

48.15

Grid reference

0

3.33

4.76

44.44

100

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-

Complex shape

28.57

6.67

33.33

85.19

3D shape

14.29

13.33

52.38

77.78

Quantity Location: front and back Location: middle and beside Location: right and left

Simple shape

Mean (1-7) SD Self-perceived maths ability

4.17

.98

Past motivation in learning maths

3.7

1.47

Contribution of nurture

5.59

.85

Contribution of nature

5.17

1.12

Note 1: No differences across groups (F-test, p < 0.05) Note 2: Significant difference between the scores for nurture and nature (t-test, p < 0.01)

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Relatively inexperienced teachers… Not so motivated in learning maths themselves… Not much time spent teaching maths… (18 minutes on average) Certainly NOT experts But believing in hard work!! Bad news for teacher educators but good news for developmental psychologists! PISA results: really affirming???

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What is the role of tutorial centres (colloquial term: 雞精班, literally ‘class serving chicken extract’) in Asia? A case study: school versus tutorial centre

At School

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Addend turn around: 5 + 6 = 11 and 6 + 5 = 11 Addition and subtraction: up to 24 3 addends Pattern: sequence, complete a pattern Match patterns: visual skills Right & left Mental rotation Combine figures 3-D shape

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Concepts that are learnt at school are reintroduced through a foreign language A lot of practice: many practice items Memorization (automacy): no need to compute the answers Visual skill training Logical reasoning

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The mother said, ‘If you’re a failure, better not live in Asia because you will be trampled on. The system here only helps the “winners”. If you have problems, study abroad or just go abroad-the system there is more protective and caring.’

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System is geared towards examination success but to the detriment of play Do children have a happy childhood? Or is their childhood being cut short? (Further research) My own experience…

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Short-term predictors (beginning to the end of kindergarten): counting, quantity discrimination, and number naming (Jordan, 2010) Long-term predictors (beginning of kindergarten to the end of grade three): foundational number sense supports computation and applied problem solving (Jordan et al., 2010)

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Quantitative pathway Linguistic pathway Spatial pathway

=> A learner excels in one area of mathematics but not in another area