Embodied Learning of Numerosity - Math with the Mat

• Applicant: Professorin Dr. Ulrike Cress
• Subject Area: General and Domain-Specific Teaching and Learning ; Developmental and Educational Psychology
• Term: from 2013 to 2019
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 232230971

There is accumulating evidence suggesting that a spatial representation of number magnitude (e.g., along a mental number line) is important for children´s numerical development. In particular, recent studies indicate that sensorimotor experiences can support this development as suggested by theories of embodied cognition. During the first and second funding period, we investigated the interplay of perception and action for the training of basic numerical competencies. The developed and evaluated embodied trainings consistently led to a more pronounced training effect in improving elementary school children´s numerical competencies than control trainings without embodied elements. The results of these studies where not just practically, but also theoretically conclusive, and warrant further expansion to new numerical contents. Therefore, the current proposal focuses on the processing of negative numbers utilizing the digital dance mat. The understanding of negative numbers is an important ability relevant in everyday life, for example when dealing with temperature, but is also a building block for many complex arithmetic procedures. The benefit of investigating this concept using the digital dance mat is the possibility of creating an embodied experience of negative numbers by means of the polarity (i.e., positive or negative) of numbers. In particular, polarity signs allow for an embodied distinction between positive and negative numbers (e.g., by making steps to the left for negative numbers and to the right for positive numbers) - comparable to the distinction between small and large numbers. In the proposed project, we first aim at investigating whether the spatial association of numbers observed for positive numbers in children can be generalized to negative numbers. Such associations have only been investigated in adult participants so far. In the next step, we then plan to evaluate whether an embodied training can be an effective way to improve children´s understanding of negative numbers. Because negative numbers are introduced in secondary school (grades 5 to 7), this also reflects an expansion of the embodied training approach beyond elementary school. In a last step, we then intend to examine the directionality of the relationship between full-body movement and numerical representations by using movement as a dependent variable. In contrast to the prior studies of the project, in which we investigated the influence of movement on number processing, this would allow us to investigate the inverse influence of numerical information on movement. With this focus on practically relevant basic research, the project allows for inferences about the development of the representation of negative numbers and broadens the applicability of embodied numerical trainings to new contents and age groups.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants
• Co-Investigators: Professor Dr. Korbinian Möller; Professor Dr. Hans-Christoph Nürk