title: Exploring individual differences in children's mathematical skills: a correlational and dimensional approach.
abstract: Individual differences in mathematical skills are typically explained by an innate capability to solve mathematical tasks. At the behavioural level this implies a consistent level of mathematical achievement that can be captured by strong relationships between tasks, as well as by a single statistical dimension that underlies performance on all mathematical tasks. To investigate this general assumption, the present study explored interrelations and dimensions of mathematical skills. For this purpose, 68 ten-year-old children from two schools were tested using nine mathematics tasks from the Basic Knowledge in Mathematics Test. Relatively low-to-moderate correlations between the mathematics tasks indicated most tasks shared less than 25% of their variance. There were four principal components, accounting for 70% of the variance in mathematical skill across tasks and participants. The high specificity in mathematical skills was discussed in relation to the principle of task specificity of learning.
authors: Department of Psychology, Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Trondheim, Norway. hermundurs@svt.ntnu.no
authors: H
authors: H
authors: Sigmundsson
authors: Victoria University, Melbourne, Australia.
authors: R C J
authors: RC
authors: Polman
authors: Department of Psychology, Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Faculty of Health Education and Social Work, Division of Physiotherapy, Sør-Trøndelag University College, Trondheim, Norway.
authors: H
authors: H
authors: Lorås
mesh_terms: D000124:Achievement; D002648:Child; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007206:Individuality; D008297:Male; D008433:Mathematics; D009664:Norway; D025341:Principal Component Analysis