All humans, irrespective of education, share a "number sense" that helps us understand mathematics. Even 5-month-old infants have this sense and can recognize the numeric difference between 6 and 12 dots on a screen. Yet there are many questions about the number sense for which we do not yet know the answers: 1) Do people vary in how accurate their number sense is across the lifespan? 2) Do these differences predict mathematics achievement? 3) Can interventions improve number sense and thereby strengthen performance in school mathematics? The aim of this project is to create a freely available assessment software that will return a standardized estimate of the accuracy of any person's number sense, filling a crucial hole in our current science.
This software will be refined from existing methods that successfully demonstrate precise estimates of students' number sense and reveal correlations between number sense and performance in school mathematics. Guided by the input of an advisory board focused on both basic mathematics research and mathematics education in the classroom, the software will be used by researchers and educators who provide feedback for its enhancement. The new knowledge created by these users will be shared with the public. The final impact of this project will be to greatly enhance research on math abilities through the creation of a common measure of number sense accuracy that will ultimately be felt in the classroom. This software will be particularly useful in identifying children at risk for difficulties in mathematics due to a specific deficit in number sense accuracy.
