Abstract:
During the first several years of life, preschool children develop an awareness of self, as
well as basic mathematical abilities. It has been shown that children who are more aware
of their own abilities are also those who are more successful on measures of cognition. It
is easy to see that the same would be true of the relation between self-awareness and
mathematical abilities. The present study is aimed at discovering how these two
constructs are related. Ninety-nine preschool children were administered tests of
perceived cognitive competence and mathematical abilities (WJIII-Applied Problems,
seriation, oddity). The following research questions are asked: Do children who score
higher on measures of mathematics also give high ratings of their own general cognitive
competence? Second, do children who score higher on measures of mathematics also
give higher ratings of their performance on those measures? The analyses indicated that,
the children’s perceived general cognitive competence ratings were significantly related
to their performance on the WJIII-Applied Problems test. No significant relations were
found between the children’s oddity and seriation scores and their perceived general
cognitive competence ratings. The children’s oddity test scores were significantly related
to their ratings of their performance on the oddity measure. No significant relations were
found between the children’s performance on the WJIII-Applied Problems and seriation
tests and their ratings of their abilities on these measures. These findings suggest
preschool children have begun to develop an awareness of their cognitive abilities, but
that this development is not complete even by four years of age.
