A Study On The Relationship Between Visual And Auditory Working Memory And Mathematical Operation Of Lower Grade Primary School Students With Mathematics Learning Difficulty

The foundation of all mathematical literacy development is mathematical operation.The mastery of basic mathematical operation ability is not only critical to individual academic achievement,but also involves many aspects of personal life.Therefore,it is essential to pay attention to the cultivation of students' basic mathematical operation ability.However,students with Mathematics Learning Difficulty(MLD),who occupy a large proportion in primary school students,show defects in mathematical operation.The field general theory of mathematical ability development points out that the root of the difficulty is that students' basic cognitive ability--working memory affects the development of children's mathematical ability.However,few studies have considered the auditory and visual channel preference of working memory,that is,whether auditory working memory and visual working memory have different effects on students' mathematical performance.The main purpose of this study is to explore the mechanism of visual and auditory working memory ability in mathematical operation of primary school students with MLD.According to the truncated score model,23 students with MLD were selected from the second and third grade of a primary school as experimental group,matched with intelligence level and learning motivation level of 29 ordinary students,as the control group.In this study,the author used E-Prime software to write two computer tasks to test visual working memory and auditory working memory.And the author used two paper-and-pencil tests from the Wechsler Individual Achievement Test--Math Fluency test and Calculation test,to measure children's mathematical operation level.This study discussed the present situation and relationship of visual and auditory working memory and mathematical operation between the students with MLD and the ordinary students.The results showed that:(1)in the Math Fluency test,the students with MLD scored the highest in the multiplication test and the lowest in the subtraction test,while the ordinary students had no significant difference in the scores.In the Calculation test,the mastery of vertical calculation of multiplication and division by the students with MLD differed greatly from that of the ordinary students,and the higher the working memory load of the questions,the lower the average correct rate of the questions.In the auditory working memory test,the students with MLD were more dependent on finger counting or oral counting strategies.In the visual working memory test,students with MLD performed poorly in visual imagination and strategy selection.In every test,the students with MLD scored significantly lower than the normal students.(2)For students with MLD and normal students,the auditory working memory only showed significant correlation and positive effect in Calculation test,and visual working memory in both Math Fluency test and Calculation test had significant correlation and positive effect.Furthermore,auditory and visual working memory did not play a joint predictive role.The results showed that the visual working memory ability had a greater effect on mathematical operation learning than the auditory working memory ability.Based on the above results,the author suggested that teachers should pay more attention to the training of working memory,especially the intervention training of visual working memory function for students with MLD in lower grades,and optimize teaching strategies to cultivate students' mathematical memory,so as to promote the improvement of mathematical operation ability.