Modeling Student Math Achievement Across Countries with Machine Learning Using TIMSS 2019

Children’s early math skills are critical for future academic success. To profile the most important predictors of student math achievement, this study applies empirically driven supervised machine learning (ML) techniques to the Trends in Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS) dataset that is a large-scale, international, nested, secondary dataset. This study seeks to determine what model class (random forest, gradient-boosted trees, multivariate adaptive regression splines, or stacked generalization) is best at reducing model error in predicting student math achievement and how these models differ across 39 countries. By using cross-validated iterative ML techniques, it also aims to establish the student, teacher, and school characteristics that are critical in predicting math achievement among 8th grade students. While the methods in this study do not use inferential statistics to examine math achievement, the predictive modeling techniques utilized may help us shed light on the contextual factors and/or culture that may account for differences in student math achievement as well as how analogous these modeled traits are across countries

Mixed results testing categorization in infants using a preferential-looking paradigm on Zoom

The link between language and cognition is evident in the first months of life. As early as three months of age, a parent labeling an object that the infant is looking at influences the infants’ thoughts about those objects (Ferry et al., 2010). Prior research investigating this link between language and cognition has found successful categorization with 6- and 12-month-olds using face-to-face methodologies via preferential-looking paradigms (Fulkerson & Waxman, 2007). Due to COVID, we sought to validate an online counterpart of the categorization task. In Experiment 1, we found that language labels facilitated object categorization for 10- to 12-month-old infants. In contrast, a control condition that presented the same labeling phrases played in reverse did not facilitate categorization. In Experiment 2, we found that labels did not facilitate object categorization among 6-month-old infants. In sum, the advantage of online infant testing may be restricted to older ages

The link between language and cognition in infancy

The link between language and thought lies at the core of what it means to be human. This link is evident in the first months of life. As early as three months of age, a parent labeling an object that the infant is looking at influences how that infant thinks about those objects (Ferry et al., 2010). Prior research used face-to-face methodologies. Considering the constraints posed by the COVID-19 pandemic, we sought to validate an online categorization task. The results show that language labels facilitated category formation for 9- to 12-month-old infants. In contrast, a control condition that presented the same labeling phrases in reverse did not facilitate categorization. These findings suggest that infants can perform categorization using an online protocol such as Zoom and this paradigm provides a promising new avenue for studying the intersection between language and cognition

The Less is More Paradox in Relational Learning

The ability to generalize previous knowledge to new contexts is a key aspect of human cognition and relational learning. A well-known learning maxim is that breadth of training predicts breadth of transfer. When examples vary in their surface features, this provides evidence that only the common relational structure is relevant. However, there is some evidence suggesting that the above maxim may not apply well in early relational learning. Here, we present a further test whether the maxim holds for young infants. We find that 3-month-old infants perform better with a narrow, perceptually similar training set than with a broad, perceptually variable set. We argue that lower-level perceptual similarities can prompt comparison processes that facilitate relational abstraction. These findings cohere with research arguing relational learning depends on relational alignment

Tracing the developmental trajectory of children’s relational learning

There are some puzzling findings concerning the early development of relational cognition. There is evidence that infants can carry out analogical generalization and form abstract relations such as same (X,X) (Anderson et al., 2018; Ferry et al., 2015). Yet, 3.5-year-olds have difficulty with these relations (Christie & Gentner, 2014; Hochmann et al., 2017; Walker & Gopnik, 2016). Further, Walker et al. (2016) find a decline from 1.5 years to 3.5 years on another same-different task (see also Carstensen et al., 2019) while prior studies have found gains in relational reasoning during this period (e.g., Gentner & Rattermann, 1991). To reconcile these findings, we are re-examining this developmental trajectory with a new task. Children must point one direction for same pairs and another for different pairs. The results revealed that 4-year-olds learned and generalized same-different relations after four exemplars and are discussed in the context of a competence-performance distinction

When do Children Pass the Relational-Match-To-Sample Task?

Relational ability—the ability to compare situations or ideas and discover common relations – is a key process in higher-order cognition that underlies transfer in learning and creative problem solving. For this reason, it has generated intense interest both among developmentalist and in cross-species comparative studies. The gold standard for evaluating relational ability is the Relational-Match-to-Sample (RMTS) task (Premack, 1983). Current work in cognitive development has produced inconsistent results as to when children are able to pass the RMTS, with Christie and Gentner (2014) finding earlier success than Hochmann et al. (2017) and Kroupin and Carey (2022). In this research, we attempt to resolve this issue. We first describe two studies that bear out and extend Christie and Gentner’s (2014) findings. We then discuss factors that might explain the discrepancy between the findings

The origins of same/different discrimination in human infants

The ability to detect relational patterns shared by different objects, events, or ideas is a cornerstone of our higher reasoning ability. This characteristic of humans’ abilities may have its origins in a relational processing mechanism that allows us to abstract same/different representations using comparison. This article discusses research that investigates the nature of this ability and how it develops by exploring relational learning in infants and tracing its development over the first year of life. Delineating the conditions that promote relational learning in young infants allows for comparisons to relational learning in children and adults. More broadly, this research influences our understanding of human cognition and how it differs from that of other species

Brief interventions influence the quantity and quality of caregiver-child conversations in an everyday context

Reading and arithmetic are difficult cognitive feats for children to master and youth from low-income communities are often less “school ready” in terms of letter and number recognition skills (Lee and Burkam, 2002). One way to prepare children for school is by encouraging caregivers to engage children in conversations about academically-relevant concepts by using numbers, recognizing shapes, and naming colors (Levine et al., 2010; Fisher et al., 2013). Previous research shows that caregiver-child conversations about these topics rarely take place in everyday contexts (Hassinger-Das et al., 2018), but interventions designed to encourage such conversations, like displaying signs in a grocery store, have resulted in significant increases in caregiver-child conversations (Ridge et al., 2015; Hanner et al., 2019). We investigated whether a similar brief intervention could change caregiver-child conversations in an everyday context. We observed 212 families in a volunteer-run facility where people who are food-insecure can select food from available donations. Volunteers greet all the clients as they pass through the aisles, offer food, and restock the shelves as needed. About 25% of the clients have children with them and our data consist of observations of the caregiver-child conversations with 2- to 10-year-old children. Half of the observation days consisted of a baseline condition in which the quantity and quality of caregiver-child conversation was observed as the client went through aisles where no signs were displayed, and volunteers merely greeted the clients. The other half of the observation days consisted of a brief intervention where signs were displayed (signs-up condition), where, volunteers greeted the clients and pointed out that there were signs displayed to entertain the children if they were interested. In addition, there was a within-subject manipulation for the intervention condition where each family interacted with two different categories of signs. Half of the signs had academically-relevant content and the other half had non-academically-relevant content. The results demonstrate that the brief intervention used in the signs-up condition increases the quantity of conversation between a caregiver and child. In addition, signs with academically-relevant content increases the quality of the conversation. These findings provide further evidence that brief interventions in an everyday context can change the caregiver-child conversation. Specifically, signs with academically-relevant content may promote school readiness