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Young children bet on their numerical skills: metacognition in the numerical domain.

Publication ,  Journal Article
Vo, VA; Li, R; Kornell, N; Pouget, A; Cantlon, JF
Published in: Psychological science
September 2014

Metacognition, the ability to assess one's own knowledge, has been targeted as a critical learning mechanism in mathematics education. Yet the early childhood origins of metacognition have proven difficult to study. Using a novel nonverbal task and a comprehensive set of metacognitive measures, we provided the strongest evidence to date that young children are metacognitive. We showed that children as young as 5 years made metacognitive "bets" on their numerical discriminations in a wagering task. However, contrary to previous reports from adults, our results showed that children's metacognition is domain specific: Their metacognition in the numerical domain was unrelated to their metacognition in another domain (emotion discrimination). Moreover, children's metacognitive ability in only the numerical domain predicted their school-based mathematics knowledge. The data provide novel evidence that metacognition is a fundamental, domain-dependent cognitive ability in children. The findings have implications for theories of uncertainty and reveal new avenues for training metacognition in children.

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Published In

Psychological science

DOI

EISSN

1467-9280

ISSN

0956-7976

Publication Date

September 2014

Volume

25

Issue

9

Start / End Page

1712 / 1721

Related Subject Headings

  • Self-Assessment
  • Mathematics
  • Male
  • Humans
  • Female
  • Experimental Psychology
  • Emotions
  • Cognition
  • Child, Preschool
  • Child Development
 

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Vo, V. A., Li, R., Kornell, N., Pouget, A., & Cantlon, J. F. (2014). Young children bet on their numerical skills: metacognition in the numerical domain. Psychological Science, 25(9), 1712–1721. https://doi.org/10.1177/0956797614538458
Vo, Vy A., Rosa Li, Nate Kornell, Alexandre Pouget, and Jessica F. Cantlon. “Young children bet on their numerical skills: metacognition in the numerical domain.Psychological Science 25, no. 9 (September 2014): 1712–21. https://doi.org/10.1177/0956797614538458.
Vo VA, Li R, Kornell N, Pouget A, Cantlon JF. Young children bet on their numerical skills: metacognition in the numerical domain. Psychological science. 2014 Sep;25(9):1712–21.
Vo, Vy A., et al. “Young children bet on their numerical skills: metacognition in the numerical domain.Psychological Science, vol. 25, no. 9, Sept. 2014, pp. 1712–21. Epmc, doi:10.1177/0956797614538458.
Vo VA, Li R, Kornell N, Pouget A, Cantlon JF. Young children bet on their numerical skills: metacognition in the numerical domain. Psychological science. 2014 Sep;25(9):1712–1721.
Journal cover image

Published In

Psychological science

DOI

EISSN

1467-9280

ISSN

0956-7976

Publication Date

September 2014

Volume

25

Issue

9

Start / End Page

1712 / 1721

Related Subject Headings

  • Self-Assessment
  • Mathematics
  • Male
  • Humans
  • Female
  • Experimental Psychology
  • Emotions
  • Cognition
  • Child, Preschool
  • Child Development