A meta-analysis on the relation between fluid intelligence and reading/mathematics: Effects of tasks, age, and social economics status.

Abstract

This study aimed to determine the relations between fluid intelligence (Gf) and reading/mathematics and possible moderators. A meta-analysis of 680 studies involving 793 independent samples and more than 370,000 participants found that Gf was moderately related to reading, r = .38, 95% CI [.36, .39], and mathematics, r = .41, 95% CI [.39, 44]. Synthesis on the longitudinal correlations showed that Gf and reading/mathematics predicted each other in the development even after controlling for initial performance. Moderation analyses revealed the following findings: (a) Gf showed stronger relations to mathematics than to reading, (b) within reading or mathematics, Gf showed stronger relations to complex skills than to foundational skills, (c) the relations between Gf and reading/mathematics increased with age, and (d) family social economic status (SES) mostly affected the relations between Gf and reading/mathematics in the early development stage. These findings, taken together, are partially in line with the investment theory but are more in line with the intrinsic cognitive load theory, mutualism theory, and the gene–SES interaction hypothesis of cognition and learning. More importantly, these findings imply an integration model of these theories from an educational and developmental perspective: Children may rely on Gf to learn reading and mathematics early on, when high family SES can boost the effects of Gf on reading/mathematics performance. As children receive more formal schooling and gain more learning experiences, their reading and mathematics improvement may promote their Gf development. During development, the negative effects of low family SES on the relations between Gf and reading/mathematics may be offset by education/learning experiences.

The Development of Academic Achievement and Cognitive Abilities: A Bidirectional Perspective

“…Such facilitation is especially important for children with disadvantages, who often lack the resources or foundational skills to trigger and benefit from the interaction between cognitive skills and academic performance. But the relations between reading/mathematics and cognitive abilities (working memory, reasoning, and executive function) are moderate ( r s = .30~.45, 10 ~ 20% variance overlap; Jacob & Parkinson, ; Peng et al, ), and the effect of age on these relations is small though significant (Peng et al, , ). Thus, short‐term cognitive training may be insufficient to improve academic performance.…”

The role of cognitive and non-cognitive factors in mathematics achievement: The importance of the quality of the student-teacher relationship in middle school

“…For example, solving mathematics problems involves reasoning skills, as they are needed to: (a) construct a structure coherent with the salient information of the text of the problem; (b) integrate information from the text with inferences based on the child's knowledge (fluid and crystallized intelligence); and, (c) create schema to formalize the relationships among quantities and guide the application of solution strategies [24]. Moreover, other complex mathematics tasks in middle school mathematics curricula, such as fractions and algebra, are built on foundational numerical and calculation skills, which are thought to require general cognitive abilities to a large degree [25][26][27][28].…”

“…Besides general cognitive ability, which has been consistently related to mathematics achievement [20], also non-cognitive factors seem to play an additional role and, among these, math anxiety [29][30][31]: this construct can be broadly defined as a state of discomfort caused by performing mathematical tasks and expresses itself as a feeling of fear that many people experience when engaging in mathematical tasks [32][33][34]. In fact, math anxiety is a multivariate construct that includes: math learning anxiety, which refers to feelings of tension when content has to be learned; math evaluation anxiety, which refers to situations in which performance in mathematics is being evaluated; and, finally, generalized school anxiety, as to an extension of anxiety to other school subject [35].…”

Sistemas de evaluación y metodologías docentes y su incidencia en las competencias genéricas (EMICOG ESTUDIANTES)

“…A estos se añade, otros dos sobre documentos oficiales: "Me siento nervioso/a cuando tengo que hacer escritos oficiales: reclamaciones, formula-rios…" y otros cuatro generales del tipo: "Estudiar textos o construir textos son de las tareas que más temo". (Calderón, Parra y Piñeros, 2018;Connor et al, 2017;Ciullo et al, 2016;Guiñazú, Aldo y Zibelman, 2014;Li et al, 2018;OECD, 2016;Peng et al, 2019; (CEEDAR, 2019a;2019b;Ciullo et al, 2016;De la Paz et al, 2016;García et al, 2005;Graham et al, 2018;Karagiannopoulou, Milienos y Athanasopoulos, 2018;Li, Ye, Tang, Koster et al, 2015;Li et al, 2018;OCDE, 2016;Peng et al, 2019;Uttl, et al, 2017;Xie et al, 2018)…”