The effects and mechanisms of preschoolers' basic cognitive skills on their arithmetic ability and geometry knowledge,China 2020–2021

In this study, we collected data from students in primary and intermediate classes of a kindergarten in Maanshan City, Anhui Province, China,The study was conducted three times,respectively in December 2020 (T1), June 2021 (T2), and December 2021 (T3), through one-on-one administration of a test with the informed consent of the school and the children's parents. In the first administration (T1), participants' quantitative representations, linguistic skills, visual perception, arithmetic ability, geometric knowledge, and nonverbal intelligence were measured, and in the second and third administration (T2 & T3), only participants' arithmetic ability and geometric knowledge were measured, and the measurements remained the same as in the first administration. During the experimental administration, 114 participants completed all rows of the test at T1; a total of 110 participants completed the measurements at T2, with a loss of 4 participants due to leave of absence or absence from school during the administration period; and 110 participants completed the measurements at T3. A total of 110 participants were ultimately included in the analyses, 54 boys and 56 girls, with participants between 3 - 6 years of age at the time of the pre-test (M = 4.30 years, SD = .53).Preprocessing of the data revealed that participant #104's score on the number of dots estimation task at T1 was outside of 5 standard deviations from the mean. Since this participant's scores on all other tasks were at normal levels, it was inferred that the data anomalies may have come from errors in the recording of the data, and therefore participant #104's score on the number of dots estimation task at T1 was excluded. The scores of participants #9 and #99 were also at the extremes (significantly 3 - 4 standard deviations above the mean) at T1 measure of arithmetic ability, but the scores were within the range of normal levels achievable by the children and should not be arbitrarily excluded. The dataset is a format file. Missing data were uniformly identified as 999, and the dataset is in .sav format. MPLUS 8.3 was used for data analysis, and the specific analysis code and data are in the geometry data analysis folder.

本研究以中国安徽省马鞍山市某幼儿园小班及中班幼儿为研究对象，收集其相关数据。研究共开展三次，分别于2020年12月（T1）、2021年6月（T2）及2021年12月（T3）进行。测试采用一对一施测方式，且已获得学校及幼儿家长的知情同意。首次施测（T1）中，对被试的数量表征（quantitative representations）能力、语言技能、视觉感知能力、算术能力、几何知识及非言语智力（nonverbal intelligence）进行了测评；第二、三次施测（T2与T3）仅测评被试的算术能力与几何知识，且测评工具与首次施测保持一致。施测过程中，T1阶段有114名被试完成全部测试项目；T2阶段因被试请假或缺勤，共流失4名，最终110名完成测评；T3阶段亦有110名被试完成测评。最终纳入分析的被试共110名，其中男孩54名、女孩56名；前测（T1）时被试年龄介于3-6岁之间，均值（Mean, M）为4.30岁，标准差（Standard Deviation, SD）为0.53。数据预处理结果显示，被试#104在T1阶段圆点数量估计任务（number of dots estimation task）中的得分偏离均值超过5个标准差。鉴于该被试其他任务得分均处于正常水平，推测数据异常可能源于记录误差，因此剔除其T1阶段圆点数量估计任务的得分。被试#9与#99在T1阶段算术能力测评中的得分亦处于极端水平（显著高于均值3-4个标准差），但该得分处于幼儿可达到的正常水平范围内，不应随意剔除。本数据集为格式化文件，缺失数据统一标记为999，文件格式为.sav。数据分析采用MPLUS 8.3软件，具体分析代码及数据存放于‘几何数据分析’文件夹中。