Commonly used assessments may be underestimating Latine families’ levels of math engagement at home and Latine children’s early math skills, according to recent studies led by a 91 College of Education researcher.
Although education statistics consistently show gaps in home math practices among Latine families when compared with the U.S. population overall, Assistant Professor Jimena Cosso’s work suggests that these differences reflect limitations in how these practices are traditionally measured. Such traditional measures, developed with English-speaking families, don’t account for cultural differences in how families engage their children with numbers, says Cosso, who directs the college’s Home Opportunities for Latines in Advancing STEM (HOLA STEM) Lab.
Based on interviews and surveys with a total of 230 Latine caregivers, Cosso led the development of a strengths-based, culturally relevant assessment that can more accurately measure how Latine families engage their children with math concepts. The measure asks more specific questions about everyday activities, as the interviews indicated that many Latine families teach numerical concepts spontaneously during daily routines such as setting the table or cleaning up toys. In addition, the measure includes culturally specific examples, such as a reference to dzٱí&Բ;or lotto, a board game commonly played in Latin America. Cosso validated this measure in a recent with 320 Latine caregivers, published in the Journal of Family Psychology.
“We are now showing that Latine families do engage in math as much as other groups, but it may look different,” said Cosso. “I hope this type of research shows them that they are doing enough, and they are valued in our research.”
In her next steps, Cosso hopes to provide culturally appropriate resources to support Latine families’ strengths and the practices they are already implementing.
In addition, in new research currently under review, Cosso examined math achievement data of 7,720 Latine children between ages 3 and 5 enrolled in Head Start. Bilingual Latine children are typically given an English proficiency language assessment that determines whether they then receive math and other assessments in English or Spanish. Cosso examined the math scores of children near the cutoff that determined which language was used. She found that children who received the math assessment in English scored significantly lower than their peers who took it in Spanish. According to Cosso, this raises questions about the cutoff and whether a single-language assessment can accurately measure a bilingual child’s knowledge.
“You can’t look at what children know in one language as if their brain only works in that language or the other. For dual language learners, that’s not how it works,” said Cosso.
Past research has shown that conceptual score assessments, which allow assessors to ask and children to answer questions in both languages, more accurately measure bilingual learners’ understanding. Cosso hopes to develop such an assessment for math in the future. Accurately assessing children’s math skills is an important step to ensuring they have access to appropriate levels of instruction.
“If we really want to assess early mathematical skills, we need to provide bilingual kids the opportunity to thrive and to do the best they can,” she said.
