More than number sense: The additional role of executive functions and metacognition in arithmetic

Abstract

Arithmetic is a major building block for children’s development of more complex mathematical abilities. Knowing which cognitive factors underlie individual differences in arithmetic is key to gaining further insight into children’s mathematical development. The current study investigated the role of executive functions and metacognition (domain-general cognitive factors) as well as symbolic numerical magnitude processing (domain-specific cognitive factor) in arithmetic, enabling the investigation of their unique contribution in addition to each other. Participants were 127 typically developing second graders (7- and 8-year-olds). Our within-participant design took into account different components of executive functions (i.e., inhibition, shifting, and updating), different aspects of metacognitive skills (i.e., task-specific and general metacognition), and different levels of experience in arithmetic, namely addition (where second graders had extensive experience) and multiplication (where second graders were still in the learning phase). This study reveals that both updating and metacognitive monitoring are important unique predictors of arithmetic in addition to each other and to symbolic numerical magnitude processing. Our results point to a strong and unique role of task-specific metacognitive monitoring skills. These individual differences in noticing one’s own errors might help one to learn from his or her mistakes.