TY - JOUR
T1 - Monitoring the own spatial thinking in second grade of primary education in a Spanish school
T2 - Preliminary study analyzing gender differences
AU - Contreras, María José
AU - Meneghetti, Chiara
AU - Uttal, David H.
AU - Fernández-Méndez, Laura M.
AU - Rodán, Antonio
AU - Montoro, Pedro R.
N1 - Funding Information:
Funding: This research falls under the research line for which some of the authors have received financial support for the research project RTI2018-098523-B-I00 “Learning of visuospatial skills to enhance equal opportunities from educational, evolutionary and gender perspectives”, from the Spanish Ministry of Science, Innovation and Universities.
Funding Information:
This research falls under the research line for which some of the authors have received financial support for the research project RTI2018-098523-B-I00 ?Learning of visuospatial skills to enhance equal opportunities from educational, evolutionary and gender perspectives?, from the Spanish Ministry of Science, Innovation and Universities. Acknowledgments: The authors wish to express their gratitude to the Leopoldo Alas School, for making available the facilities to carry out the tasks. The authors would also like to thank Teacher Patricia Gimeno, for her help at the school, and Dr. Mar?a Fern?ndez Cahill for proofreading this manuscript.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2020 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland.
PY - 2020/9
Y1 - 2020/9
N2 - Previous studies on metacognitive performance have explored children’s abilities during primary school (7–11 years) in abstract and mathematical reasoning tasks. However, there have been no studies evaluating the metamemory processes with spatial tasks in primary school children, and even more generally, only a few studies have explored spatial metacognition in adults. Taking as a preliminary study a Spanish school, the present work explores the validity of the confidence judgment model when thinking about one’s own performance in a spatial test, for boys and girls in Second Year of Primary Education (mean age of 7 years). A total of 18 boys and 15 girls applied a 4-point scale to evaluate, item by item, the confidence of their responses in the Spatial aptitude test “E” of the EFAI-1 (Factorial Assessment of Intellectual Abilities to mentally process visual stimuli). Accessibility and Accuracy Indexes were calculated for each item of the spatial task. The effect of gender was analyzed too. The tasks were administered in small groups; at the end examiners interviewed each participant, performing the confidence judgment task, item by item, of the EFAI-1 previously answered. The results (analyses carried out by SPSS) showed a high mean confidence (3 mean points out of a maximum of 4), without finding any significant differences either in the spatial performance or in the mean confidence rating between boys and girls. A significant relationship between confidence judgments and spatial task performance accuracy was found. The relationship between confidence judgments and spatial performance cannot be confirmed. The procedure adapted for testing spatial judgments about the own responses has been useful for showing the well calibrated perception about performance at this stage. The implications of the results of this exploratory study and the potential of the application of the procedure to promote thought about one’s own spatial performance and the development of strategies that modulate the effective approach of this type of spatial tasks are discussed within an educational approach.
AB - Previous studies on metacognitive performance have explored children’s abilities during primary school (7–11 years) in abstract and mathematical reasoning tasks. However, there have been no studies evaluating the metamemory processes with spatial tasks in primary school children, and even more generally, only a few studies have explored spatial metacognition in adults. Taking as a preliminary study a Spanish school, the present work explores the validity of the confidence judgment model when thinking about one’s own performance in a spatial test, for boys and girls in Second Year of Primary Education (mean age of 7 years). A total of 18 boys and 15 girls applied a 4-point scale to evaluate, item by item, the confidence of their responses in the Spatial aptitude test “E” of the EFAI-1 (Factorial Assessment of Intellectual Abilities to mentally process visual stimuli). Accessibility and Accuracy Indexes were calculated for each item of the spatial task. The effect of gender was analyzed too. The tasks were administered in small groups; at the end examiners interviewed each participant, performing the confidence judgment task, item by item, of the EFAI-1 previously answered. The results (analyses carried out by SPSS) showed a high mean confidence (3 mean points out of a maximum of 4), without finding any significant differences either in the spatial performance or in the mean confidence rating between boys and girls. A significant relationship between confidence judgments and spatial task performance accuracy was found. The relationship between confidence judgments and spatial performance cannot be confirmed. The procedure adapted for testing spatial judgments about the own responses has been useful for showing the well calibrated perception about performance at this stage. The implications of the results of this exploratory study and the potential of the application of the procedure to promote thought about one’s own spatial performance and the development of strategies that modulate the effective approach of this type of spatial tasks are discussed within an educational approach.
KW - Confidence judgments
KW - Gender differences
KW - Metacognition
KW - Numerical tasks
KW - Overconfidence
KW - Spatial thinking
KW - Supervision and control processes
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85090197435&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.3390/educsci10090237
DO - 10.3390/educsci10090237
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85090197435
SN - 2227-7102
VL - 10
SP - 1
EP - 14
JO - Education Sciences
JF - Education Sciences
IS - 9
M1 - 237
ER -