Page 85 - Children’s mathematical development and learning needs in perspective of teachers’ use of dynamic math interviews

Role of executive functioning in mathematical development
2016; Passolunghi & Pazzaglia, 2004). In addition, Cragg et al. (2017) found both visuospatial and verbal updating to play similar roles across different components of mathematics and different age groups. In contrast, St. Clair-Thompson and Gathercole (2006) found only visuospatial updating to be strongly related to mathematical problem- solving performance.
The few studies examining inhibition and/or shifting as executive functions in relation to children’s mathematical problem-solving have shown mixed results (Jacob & Parkinson, 2015). Regarding inhibition, Lee et al. (2009) found no significant associations for multi- step problem-solving. In two other studies, in contrast, significant associations were found between inhibition and the solving of both single- and multi-step mathematical problems (Passolunghi & Pazzaglia, 2004; Swanson, 2011). Specifically, children showing better inhibition of irrelevant information showed better mathematical problem-solving. To date, the evidence regarding the role of shifting in children’s mathematical problem-solving is limited and mixed. Some studies (Andersson, 2007; Cantin et al., 2016) found shifting to be a significant predictor of mathematical problem-solving, while Cragg et al. (2017) did not.
Finally, the possible associations of updating, inhibition, and shifting — considered together — with children’s advanced mathematical problem-solving have only been examined in a few studies (Agostino et al., 2010; Cragg et al., 2017; Viterbori et al., 2017). The findings have again been consistent with regard to the predictive role of updating, but not about the roles of inhibition or shifting. Agostino et al. (2010) found not only visuospatial and verbal updating but also inhibition (and not shifting) to be significant predictors while Cragg et al. (2017) found only visuospatial and verbal updating (and not inhibition and shifting) to be significantly related to mathematical problem-solving. Viterbori et al. (2017) found inhibition and shifting to play a role while third graders devised a problem-solving plan and selected the required calculations but not during their actual problem-solving. When the accuracy of their actual mathematical problem-solving was examined, only verbal updating played a role. And similarly in a very recent study in which only updating was included, Allen and Goifré (2021)
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