Mathematical development of Ecuadorian children of the first year of basic education. The role of the child and the characteristics of the environment

This project aims to analyze (the development of) the relations between the mathematical precursors of the domain-general and domain-specific and the early mathematical development of Ecuadorian children, with special attention to the influence of teaching practices in school and the numerical environment of the home. Nearly 360 first-year basic children (5-6 years), from 18 classes of the three main types of school (private, urban and rural public public) will be evaluated through a test battery that includes intelligence, working memory, understanding of magnitude, spontaneous approach in the number and mathematical skills, at the beginning and end of the school year. Half of the participating schools will follow an experimental program that stimulates the development of children's mathematics (experimental group), while the other half of the classes will continue their regular teaching practices (control group). The teaching teaching practices of both the experimental group and the control group will be observed twice during the school year through the observation instrument "Classroom Observation of Early Mathematics Environment and Teaching, Coemet". The numerical environment in the children's home will be evaluated by interviews or questionnaires to parents. The data will be analyzed through models of structural equations. The results will be significant both at theoretical and practical, since they will shed new light on (the development of) the relationships between mathematical precursors, the variables of context and early mathematical development, in less developed countries, which will allow optimizing mathematical education of this level and thus improve the posterior mathematical development of children.

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