NOT ALL CORRECT ANSWERS ARE EQUAL: EXAMINING THE ROLE OF STRATEGY IN REPEATING PATTERN ABSTRACTION

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2026-08-01

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Yıldırım, Betül Fatma
Özel, Serkan

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Patterns are a central concept in mathematics education and support later achievementand early algebraic thinking (e.g., Rittle-Johnson et al., 2017). Repeating patterns, afoundational pattern type in early childhood, have been widely studied; however,research has largely emphasized accuracy rather than strategy use. This studyinvestigates whether abstraction strategy use predicts performance in RepeatingPattern Abstraction Task (RPAT) beyond the effects of age and Visuospatial WorkingMemory (WM) in 4- to 6-year-old children. A convergent parallel mixed methoddesign was employed. 56 preschool children participated in one-to-one interviews. Theresearcher-developed RPAT (12 items;α= .88) and the Corsi span task wereadministered to assess visuospatial WM. Responses were scored dichotomously, andchildren’s explanations were coded using a hybrid thematic analysis based on Lükenand Sauzet’s (2021) strategy codes. A binomial generalized mixed-effects regressiontested the effect of strategy use on RPAT accuracy, while a second regressionexamined the contributions of strategy use, controlling age and visuospatial WM toRPAT accuracy. Binomial generalized mixed-effects analyses indicated that onlysequence awareness and unit identification strategies significantly predicted accuracy.Age 6, compared to age 5, was also a significant predictor, whereas no differences werefound between 4- and 5-year-olds. Regression analyses further revealed a quadraticrelationship between abstraction strategy use and performance. The final model,including age and visuospatial working memory, explained 76% of the variance inabstraction scores. The current study extends the existing literature about repeatingpatterning by highlighting the importance of children’s explanations and strategy use,beyond the effects of age and visuospatial working memory. In the presentation, furtherresults and implications will be discussed in detail.Acknowledgements:This study was supported by TUBITAK under the GrantNumber 124K343 and BIDEB 2210-A National Graduate Scholarship Program.ReferencesLüken, M. M., & Sauzet, O. (2021). Patterning strategies in early childhood: a mixed methodsstudy examining 3- to 5-year-old children’s patterning competencies.MathematicalThinking and Learning, 23(1), 28–48.Rittle-Johnson, B., Fyfe, E. R., Hofer, K. G., & Farran, D. C. (2017). Early MathTrajectories: Low-Income Children’s Mathematics Knowledge From Ages 4 to 11.ChildDevelopment,88(5), 1727–1742.

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https://hdl.handle.net/11511/120597

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Graduate School of Natural and Applied Sciences, Conference / Seminar