The Relationship Between Early Math Interest And Math Ability In Young Children Aged 5-6

Interest and its important role on the development of individuals are gradually being recognized.Interest has a positive influence on attention,achievement goals,levels of learning and so on.Math interest has important associations with math skills during the period of primary school,and it can predict one's future math achievement and choice of major in the collge(Steinmayr&Spinath,2009;Colleen&Sarah,2016;Doctoroff,Fisher&Burrows,2016).Thus,it's important to examine the relationship between early math interest and math skills.The purpose of this study was to investigate the relationship between preschool children's early math interest and math ability and to discuss how to measure early math interest.A sample of 164 children aged 5-6 were randomly selected from 7 classes in two kindergartens in Shanghai.The study used The Test of Early Mathematics Ability(TEMA-?)to assess young children's mathematical ability and three different approaches to measure early math interest:Child report,Teacher report and Interest observation.Descriptive statistics and ANVOA were used to analyse the characteristic of children's development of math ability and math interest,the gender difference and the difference between the children with good math ability and poor math ability.Correlation analysis was used to examine the relationship among math interest,math ability and different approaches to math interest.Regression analysis was used to examine the effect of interest on mathematics.Factor Analysis was used to find the reliability about the three different measurement tools and the most effective indicators for early math interest.At the same time,the advantages and disadvantages of the three different tools were discussed.The results indicated that:1.5-6 years old children's math ability was well-developed.2.Generally,5-6 years old children's score of math interest was well above the mean.Among them,the score of Child report was the highest,interest observations' score was the lowest.3.There was no significant gender difference in early math ability and interest.4.Except child report's interest,early math interest was positive related with math skill.Goal-directed play in the observation had the highest correlation with math ability.5.Teacher-reported interest and observed interest could significantly predicted math ability.Goal-directed play in the observation was the most predictive factor.6.5-6 years old children's math ability grouping had an impact on teacher report interest and interest observation.The scores in low-ability groups,average groups and high-ability groups showed an increasing trend.7.Child report interest and play time in the observation may be not suitable to the assesement of interest for preschool children.Teacher report and interest observation was more objective and effective.It's better to measure interest in real-life situations through observation and comprehensive evaluation.