Abstract
Visual-spatial abilities (VSA) are considered a building block of early numerical development. They are intuitively acquired in early childhood and differentiate in further development. However, when children enter school, there already are considerable individual differences in children’s visual-spatial and numerical abilities. To better understand this diversity, it is necessary to empirically evaluate the development as well as the latent structure of early VSA as proposed by the 2 by 2 taxonomy of Newcombe and Shipley (2015). In the present study, we report on a tablet-based assessment of VSA using the digital application (app) MaGrid in kindergarten children aged 4–6 years. We investigated whether the visual-spatial tasks implemented in MaGrid are sensitive to replicate previously observed age differences in VSA and thus a hierarchical development of VSA. Additionally, we evaluated whether the selected tasks conform to the taxonomy of VSA by Newcombe and Shipley (2015) applying a confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) approach. Our results indicated that the hierarchical development of VSA can be measured using MaGrid. Furthermore, the CFA substantiated the hypothesized factor structure of VSA in line with the dimensions proposed in the taxonomy of Newcombe and Shipley (2015). Taken together, the present results advance our knowledge to the (hierarchical) development as well as the latent structure of early VSA in kindergarten children.
Highlights
Numerical development was suggested to build on both spatial-geometric and numericalquantitative concepts and the acquisition of corresponding abilities (Sarama and Clements, 2004; Jirout and Newcombe, 2015; Newcombe et al, 2015)
Our confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) evaluating the structure of Visual-spatial abilities (VSA) according to the 2 by 2 taxonomy of Newcombe and Shipley (2015) indicated a good model fit for the three-factor solution reflecting the three categories of VSA of interest, this means, (i) intrinsic-static, (ii) intrinsic-dynamic, and (iii) extrinsic-static VSA
CFA results suggest that the selected MaGrid tasks can be conceptualized in terms of the three VSA as proposed by the taxonomy of Newcombe and Shipley (2015)
Summary
Numerical development was suggested to build on both spatial-geometric and numericalquantitative concepts and the acquisition of corresponding abilities (Sarama and Clements, 2004; Jirout and Newcombe, 2015; Newcombe et al, 2015) These skills were argued to be acquired intuitively in early childhood (e.g., Newcombe et al, 2015), but their close association persists in adulthood (Dehaene et al, 1999; Hubbard et al, 2005). VSA being related to static vs dynamic aspects of objects (considering propositions by e.g., Kozhevnikov et al, 2002) Such a systematic attempt to define the actual nature of VSA and to understand their latent cognitive components may provide a promising framework based on which VSA can be assessed and promoted
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