Abstract
East Asian pupils have consistently outperformed Western pupils in international comparisons of mathematical performance at both primary and secondary school level. It has sometimes been suggested that a contributory factor is the transparent counting systems of East Asian languages, which may facilitate number representation. The present study compared 35 7-year-old second-year primary school children in Oxford, England and 40 children of similar age in Hong Kong, China on a standardized arithmetic test; on a two-digit number comparison test, including easy, misleading and reversible comparisons; and on a number line task, involving placing numbers in the appropriate position on four number lines: 1–10, 1–20, 1–100, and 1–1000. The Chinese children performed significantly better than the English children on the standardized arithmetic test. They were faster but not significantly more accurate on the Number Comparison and Number Line tasks. There were no interactions between language group and comparison type on the number comparison task, though the performance of both groups was faster on easy pairs than those where there was conflict between the relative magnitudes of the tens and the units. Similarly, there were no interactions between group and number line range, though the performance of both groups was influenced by the range of the number line. The study supports the view that counting systems affect aspects of numerical abilities, but cannot be the full explanation for international differences in mathematics performance.
Highlights
Recent large-scale cross-national comparisons of mathematical abilities (Askew et al, 2010; Sturman, 2015; Mullis et al, 2016a,b) have shown that East Asian countries like China, Japan, South Korea, and Singapore are usually at the top of international comparisons of mathematics performance
An independent samples t-test showed that this difference was significant [t(73) = 4.39; p < 0.01; Cohen’s d = 1.02], with the Chinese children performing significantly better than the English children
The Chinese children performed better on a standardized arithmetic test. They were faster but not more accurate on a number comparison task; though near-ceiling effects might have contributed to the lack of group differences in accuracy
Summary
Recent large-scale cross-national comparisons of mathematical abilities (Askew et al, 2010; Sturman, 2015; Mullis et al, 2016a,b) have shown that East Asian countries like China, Japan, South Korea, and Singapore are usually at the top of international comparisons of mathematics performance. There are many possible reasons for East Asian children’s high performance on these tasks. These include differences in teaching methods: in recent years, United Kingdom schools have been seeking to develop and use materials and approaches similar to those used in Shanghai and Singapore. Some emphasize greater subject knowledge and understanding by East Asian teachers, reinforced by extensive continuous professional
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