Narrowing the early mathematics gap: A play-based intervention to promote low-income preschoolers’ number skills [Numerical magnitude comparison vs. numerical matching card game]
Scalise, N. R., Daubert, E. N., & Ramani, G. B. (2018). Journal of Numerical Cognition.
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examining46Students, gradePK
Practice Guide
Review Details
Reviewed: February 2022
- Practice Guide (findings for Numerical magnitude comparison)
- Randomized Controlled Trial
- Meets WWC standards without reservations because it is a randomized controlled trial with low attrition.
This review may not reflect the full body of research evidence for this intervention.
Evidence Tier rating based solely on this study. This intervention may achieve a higher tier when combined with the full body of evidence.
Findings
|
Outcome measure |
Comparison | Period | Sample |
Intervention mean |
Comparison mean |
Significant? |
Improvement index |
Evidence tier |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|
Non-symbolic ordinality |
Numerical magnitude comparison vs. (Not applicable) |
0 Days |
Full sample;
|
0.75 |
0.61 |
No |
-- | |
|
Non-symbolic magnitude comparison |
Numerical magnitude comparison vs. (Not applicable) |
0 Days |
Full sample;
|
0.72 |
0.66 |
No |
-- | |
|
Symbolic magnitude comparison |
Numerical magnitude comparison vs. (Not applicable) |
0 Days |
Full sample;
|
0.90 |
0.83 |
No |
-- | |
|
Rote Counting |
Numerical magnitude comparison vs. (Not applicable) |
0 Days |
Full sample;
|
1.00 |
0.98 |
No |
-- | |
|
Numeral Identification |
Numerical magnitude comparison vs. (Not applicable) |
0 Days |
Full sample;
|
0.90 |
0.91 |
No |
-- |
Evidence Tier rating based solely on this study. This intervention may achieve a higher tier when combined with the full body of evidence.
Sample Characteristics
Characteristics of study sample as reported by study author.
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Female: 48%
Male: 52% -
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Northeast, South
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Race Asian 7% Black 35% Other or unknown 4% White 54% -
Ethnicity Hispanic 54% Not Hispanic or Latino 46%
Study Details
Setting
The participants were low-income preschool children from four Head Start centers in a mid-Atlantic state.
Study sample
The low-income preschoolers had a mean age of 4 years, 9 months. Of the sample, 48% were female. Race/ethnicity demographics are: 54% Caucasian, 35% African American, 7% Asian, 4% Multiracial, and 54% Hispanic/Latino.
Intervention Group
Low-income participants met individually with an experimenter in a quiet area of the hallway or room nearby their classroom for 6 sessions, each 15-20 minutes occurring over a 3-week period on average. During Sessions 1 and 6, the children completed 5 pretest and posttest assessments of their numerical knowledge, including multiple measures assessing non-symbolic and symbolic representations. Following Session 1, children were randomly assigned and stratified by gender to either the intervention condition that played a numerical magnitude comparison card game condition (War) or to the comparison condition that used a numerical matching card game condition (Memory) during Sessions 2-5. The War card game used 40 cards which included 4 subsets of cards representing quantities 1 through 10. Each card had both Arabic numerals and red dots representing the quantity. Students played the game with an experimenter. The cards were divided equally between the experimenter and the student to start. To play, each person turned over his/her top card, said the number on the card, and then the child was asked to say which number was greater. If a child struggled to identify the number the experimenter had the child count the dots. If the student was ever wrong the experimenter corrected the number. The player with the greater magnitude card took the card and whoever had the most cards at the end of the game won. Each session consisted of 15 minutes and as many rounds as could be played during that time were played.
Comparison Group
The same deck of cards used for the intervention was used in the Memory card game comparison condition. These cards were organized into two sets of 10 cards each. Each set of 10 contained 5 pairs of matching number cards. For each game, the 10 cards were placed face down in 2 rows of 5 columns. Each player took turns flipping over 2 cards and saying the number on each card, trying to find cards with the same number. If a child struggled the experimenter encouraged them to count the dots and if the child ever said the incorrect number the experimenter corrected them. Sessions lasted a total of 15 minutes and as many rounds as could be played in that time were played.
Support for implementation
No support for implementation was described.
An indicator of the effect of the intervention, the improvement index can be interpreted as the expected change in percentile rank for an average comparison group student if that student had received the intervention.
For more, please see the WWC Glossary entry for improvement index.
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The sample on which the analysis was conducted.
The group to which the intervention group is compared, which may include a different intervention, business as usual, or no services.
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The number of students included in the analysis.
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The mean score of students in the comparison group.
The WWC considers a finding to be statistically significant if the likelihood that the finding is due to chance alone, rather than a real difference, is less than five percent.
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Study findings for this report.
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