The Role of Components of Working Memory and Age in Predicting Mathematical Performance in Primary School Children

Abstract

Adequate performance in mathematics is crucial not only during an individual’s time in education but continues to be important throughout the course of their life. In order to detect potential later difficulties in mathematics, understanding mechanisms behind mathematical performance is key. Working memory is strongly suggested to be one of these contributing factors, yet it is not clear if all components of working memory are involved, and/or to what extent each component plays in this working memory-mathematical performance relationship. In addition to this, findings are also inconclusive on the role that age may have in this predictive association. Accordingly, this study aimed to explore the predictive role of the components of working memory (the executive functions inhibition, shifting and updating, the visuospatial sketchpad and the phonological loop) in mathematical performance, as well as how age may act as a moderating factor. The study tested primary school children from one international school and three Dutch schools in The Netherlands, and components of working memory were measured by various tests, including work-recall backwards and word-recall forwards, through the computer program e-prime. In variation to previous findings, the results illustrated that all components of working memory, except that of the visuospatial sketchpad, were non-significant in predicting mathematical performance. Moreover, age did not prove to be a moderating factor in this relationship for any of the working memory components. The non-significant results are suggested to be due to a result of a multitude of reasons, such as variations in the sample, with it involving students from one international school and three Dutch schools, and hence second language of students - particularly in the international school - may have compromised test performance.