Teaching Mathematics at school to all students is commonly justified by the opinion that it improves their problem-solving skills and "makes them smarter" (whichever measure is implied by this). I wonder a few things about this:
1) If there is a clear empirical support for this opinion. Does that evidence answer the question of the causality direction between learning maths and cognitive ability? Recommendations on good literature about this would be appreciated too.
2) Do the abilities students develop improve performance for solving problems that are non explicitly mathematical. For example - learning volumes of 3D shapes could improve spatial navigation.
3) And importantly, are these improvements particularly due to teaching maths? E.g. for the previous example - wouldn't learning world maps in a geography class or spatial maze tasks develop spatial navigation more efficiently than learning calculation of volumes?
Thank you!
Mathematics usually helps to develop better thinking among different subjects, including mathematical issues of a creative nature
I'd say that the first reason to teach mathematics to children is not to teach general problem solving skills, but it's that mathematics itself is a useful skill that you need in daily life. It's justified in itself. The others can be an added bonus.
That also means that most questions you ask are difficult to answer, as they would require an RCT: children should be randomly divided over two groups, only one of which is taught mathematics. But depriving children of math education would be considered unethical by almost everyone.
That said, many training studies show that far transfer, which is transfer of knowledge of one skill to a very different skill, is very limited. That simply means that if you want to improve spatial navigation, it will probably make most sense to train spatial navigation and not something else.
Also note that navigating yourself is quite different from calculating volumes or a world map. For navigating yourself you need an egocentric frame of reference: the position of everything changes around you and you need to update your mental map as you move. With sufficient experience in an area you may develop an allocentric frame of reference of this area: where things are relative to each other, not relative to you.
But calculating volumes is merely a trick to learn to apply a formula, and when reading a world map you don't have to deal with shifting perspectives and updating your mental map either. So my two cents are that those two skills are very different from spatial navigation and training those wouldn't specifically transfer to spatial navigation. (Also, anecdotally: I can calculate volumes and read maps very well, but I'm a total disaster at spatial navigation!).
Just like weight-training builds the muscles, mathematical thinking develops the brain. ... Studying math can help to boost overall intelligence by developing important skills such as systematic thinking, problem solving, sequence and pattern recognition, etc.
Mathematics usually helps to develop better thinking among different subjects, including mathematical issues of a creative nature
Además de promover el desarrollo cognitivo, la resolución de conflicto, la habilidad matemática, entre otras, lo más importante es que promueve y sirve de estímulo al pensamiento complejo y el pensamiento abstracto.
Sanne H G Van der Ven , thank you for your insightful answer. So the far transfer is limited and the benefits of mathematical education are the mathematical skills themselves. It is very clear how number and geometry skills are directly useful in solving everyday problems. However, when it comes to algebraic manipulations it becomes harder to justify having Mathematics as a compulsory subject. Substitution, rearranging equations and a few other algebraic are commonly used in IT, finances, and other common professions. But what in your view is a strong justification for compulsory teaching algebra for students of low ability who are going to pursuit a career in the field where algebra is not used? (hospitality and services can be good examples).
It seems from your background that your research is quite relevant to the question. If you are aware of any observational studies that would help get more information on the topic, I would appreciate your recommendations.
- Badges
- Science topic
- Similar topics
- Mathematics