Implicit Ordinal Number Knowledge Tasks as Predictors for Number Line Comprehension: A Validation Study

Abstract

In developmental literature, seriation, correspondence, and transitivity tasks are frequently used as measurements of implicit ordinal number knowledge. In this study, the relationship between these three types of implicit ordinal number knowledge tasks and explicit ordinal number knowledge (as measured with number line comprehension tasks) are reported. Subjects were 170 four to seven-year-old children from kindergarten and elementary school grades 1 and 2. The three kinds of implicit number knowledge tasks were administered at the beginning of the school year. One year later, the subjects were tested again on their number line comprehension. Strong relationships of r = .74 and r = .64 were found between the total scores on number line comprehension tasks and, respectively, seriation and correspondence tasks. However, a moderate relationship of r = .48 was observed between transitivity and number line comprehension. In multiple regression analysis, only the combination of seriation and correspondence showed a significant increase (r = .79) in the predictive value of the performance on the number line comprehension tasks compared to the predictive values found for seriation alone.