The Development Of Mathematical Ability In Upper Elementary School Students: The Role Of Reasoning Ability And Social Support

Mathematical ability is a consistent psychological trait that manifests itself in an individual’s mathematical pursuits.This ability forms the foundation of modern science,technology,and economy,as well as playing a significant role in propelling overall human development forward.The upper elementary school is a critical period for developing students’ mathematical skills,as their computational and logical thinking skills begin to take shape and develop rapidly.At the same time,in the context of the "double reduction" policy,exploring how to improve the mathematical ability of primary school students has become an important issue in the fields of education and psychology,which has important scientific significance and social value.The development of mathematical ability is the result of both individual factors and social environment factors(Lee & Shute,2010).The association between reasoning ability and mathematical proficiency is a crucial individual factor.It has been found that reasoning ability significantly predicts students’ mathematical ability and even future academic performance(Taub et al.,2008).Among the social environment factors,good social support helps students to cope with various stressors in school and life environment in a timely manner and maintain their psychological health.As important others in elementary school students’ lives and school environments,the supportive role of teachers,parents,and peers cannot be overstated(Liu &Meng,2009).Studies have found that children with higher levels of perceived social support tend to perform better academically as well(Wu et al.,2023).Second,In middle school students,social support plays a moderating role in the correlation between reasoning ability and mathematical proficiency.Students who perceive higher levels of social support demonstrate a stronger predictive relationship between their reasoning abilities and mathematical aptitude.(Xing & Liang,2020),but this finding is less studied in the elementary school population.It was also found that the relationship between reasoning ability and social support and mathematical ability were both influenced by age.The relationship between reasoning ability and mathematical ability gradually increased with age(Peng et al.,2019),and the relationship between social support and mathematical ability also tended to increase and then decrease(Wu et al.,2023).However,this finding has been less studied in specific groups,especially in the upper grades of elementary school students.Then,how the relationship between reasoning ability and social support and mathematical ability of upper elementary school students tends to change with age will be examined in this study.In this research,a sample of 287 fourth-grade and 225 sixth-grade elementary school students were chosen as participants.Mathematical ability tasks,including computation and mathematical reasoning,as well as reasoning ability tasks such as inductive,analogical,and deductive reasoning,and social support measurements such as parental support,teacher-student relationships,and friendship quality were employed to investigate the impact of reasoning ability and social support on the development of mathematical ability among upper elementary school students.Controlling for factors such as spatial ability(mental rotation)and language ability(word discrimination),the study systematically examined the role of these individual and contextual factors.The data was analyzed using Excel and SPSS software.The results of the analysis are presented below.(1)Sixth graders had higher mathematical ability than fourth graders,with higher development of mathematical reasoning ability than computational ability.The study found that sixth-grade students exhibited greater reasoning ability than fourth-grade students,and their development of each reasoning ability followed the order of analogical reasoning,deductive reasoning,and inductive reasoning in decreasing order of proficiency.The level of parental support was significantly higher for sixth graders than for fourth graders,while the quality of social support and subtypes of teacher-student relationships and friendships were not significantly different from fourth graders.(2)After controlling for gender,age,language ability,and spatial ability,deductive reasoning still significantly predicted mathematical ability,and there was a moderate correlation between the two,with its predictive effect increasing with grade level.Among them,inductive and analogical reasoning both predicted mathematical ability,computational and mathematical reasoning tasks,and deductive reasoning predicted only mathematical ability and computational ability.The order of the magnitude of the effects of the three reasoning abilities was as follows: analogical reasoning,deductive reasoning,and inductive reasoning.(3)After controlling for gender and age variables,social support still significantly predicted mathematical ability,and there was a weak correlation between the two.The effect size decreased with age.Among them,the predictive effects of teacher-student relationship and friendship quality on mathematical ability decreased,and the predictive effects of parental support were more stable.The predictive effects of teacher-student relationship and parental support increased for mathematical reasoning and decreased for numerical ability.Friendship quality had no significant predictive effect on mathematical reasoning and computational ability.The effect sizes of all three support types were in the order of teacher-student relationship,parental support,and friendship quality.(4)The role of reasoning ability on mathematical ability was positively moderated by the role of social support.In summary,this study found the following conclusions.(1)The mathematical ability of upper elementary school students showed a slow growth trend,the reasoning ability showed a rapid growth trend,and there was no significant change in perceived social support.(2)Reasoning ability has a universal role in mathematics learning,increasing with grade level.(3)Social support has a universal role in mathematics learning,decreasing with increasing grade level.(4)Social support has a moderating role in the relationship between reasoning ability and mathematical ability in elementary school students.The study’s results led to the following educational suggestions:(1)Understand the critical period of students’ ability development and integrate reasoning training into regular instruction to enhance mathematical ability.(2)Pay attention to the construction of students’ psychological health and give play to the gaining role of social support in order to enhance mathematical ability.