title: Specificity of children's arithmetic learning.
abstract: Among adults, arithmetic training-transfer studies have documented a high degree of learning specificity. Provided that there is a delay of at least 1day between training and testing, performance gains do not transfer to untrained problems, nor do they transfer to complement operation-inverted problems (e.g., gains for 4+7=__ do not transfer to the complement subtraction problem, 11-4=__, or vice versa). Here we demonstrate the same degree of learning specificity among 6- to 11-year-old children. These results appear to rule out, for the current training paradigm, operation-level procedural learning as well as any variant of complement problem mediation that would predict transfer. Results are consistent with either or both of two types of learning: (a) item-level procedural learning and (b) a shift to memory-based performance as predicted by the elemental elements model. These results suggest a developmental pattern such that specificity of learning among children is similar to that among adults. Educational implications are noted.
authors: Department of Psychology, University of California, San Diego, La Jolla, CA 92093, USA.
authors: Drew
authors: D
authors: Walker
authors: Department of Psychology, University of California, San Diego, La Jolla, CA 92093, USA.
authors: Daniel
authors: D
authors: Bajic
authors: Department of Psychology, University of California, San Diego, La Jolla, CA 92093, USA.
authors: Laura
authors: L
authors: Mickes
authors: Department of Psychology, University of California, San Diego, La Jolla, CA 92093, USA.
authors: Jung
authors: J
authors: Kwak
authors: Department of Psychology, University of California, San Diego, La Jolla, CA 92093, USA. Electronic address: trickard@ucsd.edu.
authors: Timothy C
authors: TC
authors: Rickard
mesh_terms: D000367:Age Factors; D002648:Child; D004521:Educational Measurement; D005793:Generalization, Psychological; D006801:Humans; D008433:Mathematics / Q000193:education*; D011340:Problem Solving; D014163:Transfer, Psychology
keywords: Arithmetic; Identical elements model; Learning; Memory; Problem solving; Transfer