Elizabeth A Gunderson
Biographic Data
| ID | 5757544 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Elizabeth A Gunderson |
| GIVEN NAMES | Elizabeth A |
| FAMILY NAME | Gunderson |
| SIGNATURE | GUNDERSON E A |
| AFFILIATIONS | Temple University |
| ORCID | 0000-0001-7108-2283 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 23 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 205 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 23 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2010 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2025 |
| H-INDEX | 6 |
The transfer effect of mental rotation training on arithmetic skill: The role of state anxiety and arithmetic strategy use
Spatial skills in early childhood are key predictors of mathematical achievement. Previous studies have found that training mental rotation can transfer to arithmetic skills; however, some studies have failed to replicate this transfer effect, or observed transfer effects only in certain types of arithmetic problems. Even in studies where transfer effects were observed, the underlying mechanisms of this transfer have not been explored. This study…
This is hard!” Children’s and parents’ talk about difficulty during dyadic interactions
Children's beliefs about the contribution of effort and ability to success and failure shape their decisions to persist or give up on challenging tasks, with consequences for their academic success. But how do children learn about the concept of "challenge"? Prior work has shown that parents' verbal responses to success and failure shape children's motivational beliefs. In this study, we explore another type of talk-parent and child talk about di…
Parental intrusive homework support and math achievement: Does the child’s mindset matter
Prior research shows that when parents monitor, check, and assist in completing homework without an invitation, their children's motivation and academic achievement often decline. We propose that intrusive support from parents might also send the message that children are incompetent, especially if they believe their intelligence is fixed. We tested whether children's mindsets moderate the negative link between parents' intrusive homework support…
Socioeconomic Variations in the Frequency of Parent Number Talk: A Meta-Analysis
Using data from 12 studies, we meta-analyze correlations between parent number talk during interactions with their young children (mean sample age ranging from 22 to 79 months) and two aspects of family socioeconomics, parent education, and family income. Potential variations in correlation sizes as a function of study characteristics were explored. Statistically significant positive correlations were found between the amount of number talk in pa…
Fiber Arts Require Spatial Skills: How a Stereotypically Feminine Practice Can Help Us Understand Spatial Skills and Improve Spatial Learning
Fathers’ and mothers’ praise and spatial language during play with first graders: Patterns of interaction and relations to math achievement
Parents provide motivational and cognitive support within the same interaction, yet researchers have investigated these separately. We examined two key aspects of parental support, praise (motivational support) and spatial language (cognitive support), from fathers and mothers during three tasks with their first-grade children (6-7-year-olds; N = 107; 56 girls; 72.0% White, 23.4% Black). Parents' praise and spatial language varied by task but not…
Spatial skills, but not spatial anxiety, mediate the gender difference in number line estimation
Recently, there has been increasing evidence showing that males estimate whole numbers more accurately than females on the number line. However, relatively little is known about what factors contribute to this gender gap. The current study explored potential mediators of the gender difference in number line estimation, including spatial skills and spatial anxiety. In the Fall (time-point 1 [T1]), 490 children from kindergarten through fourth grad…
Causal Effects of Parent Number Talk on Preschoolers’ Number Knowledge
Individual differences in children’s number knowledge arise early and are associated with variation in parents’ number talk. However, there exists little experimental evidence of a causal link between parent number talk and children’s number knowledge. Parent number talk was manipulated by creating picture books which parents were asked to read with their children every day for 4 weeks. N = 100 two- to four-year olds and their parents were random…
The role of inhibitory control in strategy change: The case of linear measurement
Elementary school students often lack a conceptual understanding of linear measurement, which is revealed by their poor performance when the object to be measured is not aligned with the start of the ruler. Instead of correctly counting the units that correspond to the object (e.g., inches or centimeters), children often use 1 of 2 incorrect strategies: reading off the number that corresponds to the end of the object (the least-mature, read-off s…
Malleability of whole-number and fraction biases in decimal comparison
Children and adults often have difficulties comparing decimal magnitudes. Although individuals attempt to reconcile decimals with prior whole-number and fraction knowledge, conceptual and procedural differences between decimals and prior knowledge of whole numbers and fractions can lead to incorrect strategies. The dynamic strategy choice account has proposed that saliency, recency, prior knowledge, and other factors contribute to strategy use wh…
Parent praise to toddlers predicts fourth grade academic achievement via children’s incremental mindsets
In a previous study, parent-child praise was observed in natural interactions at home when children were 1, 2, and 3 years of age. Children who received a relatively high proportion of process praise (e.g., praise for effort and strategies) showed stronger incremental motivational frameworks, including a belief that intelligence can be developed and a greater desire for challenge, when they were in 2nd or 3rd grade (Gunderson et al., 2013). The c…
Who needs innate ability to succeed in math and literacy? Academic-domain-specific theories of intelligence about peers versus adults
Individuals' implicit theories of intelligence exist on a spectrum, from believing intelligence is fixed and unchangeable, to believing it is malleable and can be improved with effort. A belief in malleable intelligence leads to adaptive responses to challenge and higher achievement. However, surprisingly little is known about the development of academic-domain-specific theories of intelligence (i.e., math vs. reading and writing). The authors ex…
The number line is a critical spatial-numerical representation: Evidence from a fraction intervention
Children's ability to place fractions on a number line strongly correlates with math achievement. But does the number line play a causal role in fraction learning or does it simply index more advanced fraction knowledge? The number line may be a particularly effective representation for fraction learning because its properties align with the desired mental representation and take advantage of preexisting spatial-numeric biases. Using a pretest-tr…
A parent-directed language intervention for children of low socioeconomic status: A randomized controlled pilot study
We designed a parent-directed home-visiting intervention targeting socioeconomic status (SES) disparities in children's early language environments. A randomized controlled trial was used to evaluate whether the intervention improved parents' knowledge of child language development and increased the amount and diversity of parent talk. Twenty-three mother–child dyads (12 experimental, 11 control, aged 1;5–3;0) participated in eight weekly hour-lo…
Intergenerational Effects of Parents’ Math Anxiety on Children’s Math Achievement and Anxiety
A large field study of children in first and second grade explored how parents’ anxiety about math relates to their children’s math achievement. The goal of the study was to better understand why some students perform worse in math than others. We tested whether parents’ math anxiety predicts their children’s math achievement across the school year. We found that when parents are more math anxious, their children learn significantly less math ove…
Parent Praise to 1- to 3-Year-Olds Predicts Children's Motivational Frameworks 5 Years Later
In laboratory studies, praising children's effort encourages them to adopt incremental motivational frameworks—they believe ability is malleable, attribute success to hard work, enjoy challenges, and generate strategies for improvement. In contrast, praising children's inherent abilities encourages them to adopt fixed-ability frameworks. Does the praise parents spontaneously give children at home show the same effects? Although parents' early pra…
Math Anxiety, Working Memory, and Math Achievement in Early Elementary School
Although math anxiety is associated with poor mathematical knowledge and low course grades (Ashcraft & Krause, Citation2007), research establishing a connection between math anxiety and math achievement has generally been conducted with young adults, ignoring the emergence of math anxiety in young children. In the current study, we explored whether math anxiety relates to young children's math achievement. One hundred and fifty-four first- and se…
The relation between spatial skill and early number knowledge: The role of the linear number line
Spatial skill is highly related to success in math and science (e.g., Casey, Nuttall, Pezaris, & Benbow, 1995). However, little work has investigated the cognitive pathways by which the relation between spatial skill and math achievement emerges. We hypothesized that spatial skill plays a crucial role in the development of numerical reasoning by helping children to create a spatially meaningful, powerful numerical representation-the linear number…
Some types of parent number talk count more than others: relations between parents’ input and children’s cardinal-number knowledge: Types of parent number talk
Before they enter preschool, children vary greatly in their numerical and mathematical knowledge, and this knowledge predicts their achievement throughout elementary school (e.g. Duncan et al., 2007; Ginsburg & Russell, 1981). Therefore, it is critical that we look to the home environment for parental inputs that may lead to these early variations. Recent work has shown that the amount of number talk that parents engage in with their children is …
The Role of Parents and Teachers in the Development of Gender-Related Math Attitudes
New Directions for Research on the Role of Parents and Teachers in the Development of Gender-Related Math Attitudes: Response to Commentaries
Female teachers’ math anxiety affects girls’ math achievement
People’s fear and anxiety about doing math—over and above actual math ability—can be an impediment to their math achievement. We show that when the math-anxious individuals are female elementary school teachers, their math anxiety carries negative consequences for the math achievement of their female students. Early elementary school teachers in the United States are almost exclusively female (>90%), and we provide evidence that these female teac…
What counts in the development of young children's number knowledge
Prior studies indicate that children vary widely in their mathematical knowledge by the time they enter preschool and that this variation predicts levels of achievement in elementary school. In a longitudinal study of a diverse sample of 44 preschool children, we examined the extent to which their understanding of the cardinal meanings of the number words (e.g., knowing that the word "four" refers to sets with 4 items) is predicted by the "number…
The Role of Parents and Teachers in the Development of Gender-Related Math Attitudes
The relation between spatial skill and early number knowledge: The role of the linear number line
Spatial skill is highly related to success in math and science (e.g., Casey, Nuttall, Pezaris, & Benbow, 1995). However, little work has investigated the cognitive pathways by which the relation between spatial skill and math achievement emerges. We hypothesized that spatial skill plays a crucial role in the development of numerical reasoning by helping children to create a spatially meaningful, powerful numerical representation-the linear number…
What counts in the development of young children's number knowledge
Prior studies indicate that children vary widely in their mathematical knowledge by the time they enter preschool and that this variation predicts levels of achievement in elementary school. In a longitudinal study of a diverse sample of 44 preschool children, we examined the extent to which their understanding of the cardinal meanings of the number words (e.g., knowing that the word "four" refers to sets with 4 items) is predicted by the "number…
Parent praise to toddlers predicts fourth grade academic achievement via children’s incremental mindsets
In a previous study, parent-child praise was observed in natural interactions at home when children were 1, 2, and 3 years of age. Children who received a relatively high proportion of process praise (e.g., praise for effort and strategies) showed stronger incremental motivational frameworks, including a belief that intelligence can be developed and a greater desire for challenge, when they were in 2nd or 3rd grade (Gunderson et al., 2013). The c…
Who needs innate ability to succeed in math and literacy? Academic-domain-specific theories of intelligence about peers versus adults
Individuals' implicit theories of intelligence exist on a spectrum, from believing intelligence is fixed and unchangeable, to believing it is malleable and can be improved with effort. A belief in malleable intelligence leads to adaptive responses to challenge and higher achievement. However, surprisingly little is known about the development of academic-domain-specific theories of intelligence (i.e., math vs. reading and writing). The authors ex…
The number line is a critical spatial-numerical representation: Evidence from a fraction intervention
Children's ability to place fractions on a number line strongly correlates with math achievement. But does the number line play a causal role in fraction learning or does it simply index more advanced fraction knowledge? The number line may be a particularly effective representation for fraction learning because its properties align with the desired mental representation and take advantage of preexisting spatial-numeric biases. Using a pretest-tr…
Fathers’ and mothers’ praise and spatial language during play with first graders: Patterns of interaction and relations to math achievement
Parents provide motivational and cognitive support within the same interaction, yet researchers have investigated these separately. We examined two key aspects of parental support, praise (motivational support) and spatial language (cognitive support), from fathers and mothers during three tasks with their first-grade children (6-7-year-olds; N = 107; 56 girls; 72.0% White, 23.4% Black). Parents' praise and spatial language varied by task but not…
Parental intrusive homework support and math achievement: Does the child’s mindset matter
Prior research shows that when parents monitor, check, and assist in completing homework without an invitation, their children's motivation and academic achievement often decline. We propose that intrusive support from parents might also send the message that children are incompetent, especially if they believe their intelligence is fixed. We tested whether children's mindsets moderate the negative link between parents' intrusive homework support…
This is hard!” Children’s and parents’ talk about difficulty during dyadic interactions
Children's beliefs about the contribution of effort and ability to success and failure shape their decisions to persist or give up on challenging tasks, with consequences for their academic success. But how do children learn about the concept of "challenge"? Prior work has shown that parents' verbal responses to success and failure shape children's motivational beliefs. In this study, we explore another type of talk-parent and child talk about di…
The role of inhibitory control in strategy change: The case of linear measurement
Elementary school students often lack a conceptual understanding of linear measurement, which is revealed by their poor performance when the object to be measured is not aligned with the start of the ruler. Instead of correctly counting the units that correspond to the object (e.g., inches or centimeters), children often use 1 of 2 incorrect strategies: reading off the number that corresponds to the end of the object (the least-mature, read-off s…
Female teachers’ math anxiety affects girls’ math achievement
People’s fear and anxiety about doing math—over and above actual math ability—can be an impediment to their math achievement. We show that when the math-anxious individuals are female elementary school teachers, their math anxiety carries negative consequences for the math achievement of their female students. Early elementary school teachers in the United States are almost exclusively female (>90%), and we provide evidence that these female teac…
What counts in the development of young children's number knowledge
Prior studies indicate that children vary widely in their mathematical knowledge by the time they enter preschool and that this variation predicts levels of achievement in elementary school. In a longitudinal study of a diverse sample of 44 preschool children, we examined the extent to which their understanding of the cardinal meanings of the number words (e.g., knowing that the word "four" refers to sets with 4 items) is predicted by the "number…
Some types of parent number talk count more than others: relations between parents’ input and children’s cardinal-number knowledge: Types of parent number talk
Before they enter preschool, children vary greatly in their numerical and mathematical knowledge, and this knowledge predicts their achievement throughout elementary school (e.g. Duncan et al., 2007; Ginsburg & Russell, 1981). Therefore, it is critical that we look to the home environment for parental inputs that may lead to these early variations. Recent work has shown that the amount of number talk that parents engage in with their children is …
The Role of Parents and Teachers in the Development of Gender-Related Math Attitudes
New Directions for Research on the Role of Parents and Teachers in the Development of Gender-Related Math Attitudes: Response to Commentaries
The relation between spatial skill and early number knowledge: The role of the linear number line
Spatial skill is highly related to success in math and science (e.g., Casey, Nuttall, Pezaris, & Benbow, 1995). However, little work has investigated the cognitive pathways by which the relation between spatial skill and math achievement emerges. We hypothesized that spatial skill plays a crucial role in the development of numerical reasoning by helping children to create a spatially meaningful, powerful numerical representation-the linear number…
Parent Praise to 1- to 3-Year-Olds Predicts Children's Motivational Frameworks 5 Years Later
In laboratory studies, praising children's effort encourages them to adopt incremental motivational frameworks—they believe ability is malleable, attribute success to hard work, enjoy challenges, and generate strategies for improvement. In contrast, praising children's inherent abilities encourages them to adopt fixed-ability frameworks. Does the praise parents spontaneously give children at home show the same effects? Although parents' early pra…
Math Anxiety, Working Memory, and Math Achievement in Early Elementary School
Although math anxiety is associated with poor mathematical knowledge and low course grades (Ashcraft & Krause, Citation2007), research establishing a connection between math anxiety and math achievement has generally been conducted with young adults, ignoring the emergence of math anxiety in young children. In the current study, we explored whether math anxiety relates to young children's math achievement. One hundred and fifty-four first- and se…
Intergenerational Effects of Parents’ Math Anxiety on Children’s Math Achievement and Anxiety
A large field study of children in first and second grade explored how parents’ anxiety about math relates to their children’s math achievement. The goal of the study was to better understand why some students perform worse in math than others. We tested whether parents’ math anxiety predicts their children’s math achievement across the school year. We found that when parents are more math anxious, their children learn significantly less math ove…
A parent-directed language intervention for children of low socioeconomic status: A randomized controlled pilot study
We designed a parent-directed home-visiting intervention targeting socioeconomic status (SES) disparities in children's early language environments. A randomized controlled trial was used to evaluate whether the intervention improved parents' knowledge of child language development and increased the amount and diversity of parent talk. Twenty-three mother–child dyads (12 experimental, 11 control, aged 1;5–3;0) participated in eight weekly hour-lo…
Who needs innate ability to succeed in math and literacy? Academic-domain-specific theories of intelligence about peers versus adults
Individuals' implicit theories of intelligence exist on a spectrum, from believing intelligence is fixed and unchangeable, to believing it is malleable and can be improved with effort. A belief in malleable intelligence leads to adaptive responses to challenge and higher achievement. However, surprisingly little is known about the development of academic-domain-specific theories of intelligence (i.e., math vs. reading and writing). The authors ex…
The number line is a critical spatial-numerical representation: Evidence from a fraction intervention
Children's ability to place fractions on a number line strongly correlates with math achievement. But does the number line play a causal role in fraction learning or does it simply index more advanced fraction knowledge? The number line may be a particularly effective representation for fraction learning because its properties align with the desired mental representation and take advantage of preexisting spatial-numeric biases. Using a pretest-tr…
Parent praise to toddlers predicts fourth grade academic achievement via children’s incremental mindsets
In a previous study, parent-child praise was observed in natural interactions at home when children were 1, 2, and 3 years of age. Children who received a relatively high proportion of process praise (e.g., praise for effort and strategies) showed stronger incremental motivational frameworks, including a belief that intelligence can be developed and a greater desire for challenge, when they were in 2nd or 3rd grade (Gunderson et al., 2013). The c…
The role of inhibitory control in strategy change: The case of linear measurement
Elementary school students often lack a conceptual understanding of linear measurement, which is revealed by their poor performance when the object to be measured is not aligned with the start of the ruler. Instead of correctly counting the units that correspond to the object (e.g., inches or centimeters), children often use 1 of 2 incorrect strategies: reading off the number that corresponds to the end of the object (the least-mature, read-off s…
Malleability of whole-number and fraction biases in decimal comparison
Children and adults often have difficulties comparing decimal magnitudes. Although individuals attempt to reconcile decimals with prior whole-number and fraction knowledge, conceptual and procedural differences between decimals and prior knowledge of whole numbers and fractions can lead to incorrect strategies. The dynamic strategy choice account has proposed that saliency, recency, prior knowledge, and other factors contribute to strategy use wh…
Causal Effects of Parent Number Talk on Preschoolers’ Number Knowledge
Individual differences in children’s number knowledge arise early and are associated with variation in parents’ number talk. However, there exists little experimental evidence of a causal link between parent number talk and children’s number knowledge. Parent number talk was manipulated by creating picture books which parents were asked to read with their children every day for 4 weeks. N = 100 two- to four-year olds and their parents were random…
Socioeconomic Variations in the Frequency of Parent Number Talk: A Meta-Analysis
Using data from 12 studies, we meta-analyze correlations between parent number talk during interactions with their young children (mean sample age ranging from 22 to 79 months) and two aspects of family socioeconomics, parent education, and family income. Potential variations in correlation sizes as a function of study characteristics were explored. Statistically significant positive correlations were found between the amount of number talk in pa…
Fiber Arts Require Spatial Skills: How a Stereotypically Feminine Practice Can Help Us Understand Spatial Skills and Improve Spatial Learning
Fathers’ and mothers’ praise and spatial language during play with first graders: Patterns of interaction and relations to math achievement
Parents provide motivational and cognitive support within the same interaction, yet researchers have investigated these separately. We examined two key aspects of parental support, praise (motivational support) and spatial language (cognitive support), from fathers and mothers during three tasks with their first-grade children (6-7-year-olds; N = 107; 56 girls; 72.0% White, 23.4% Black). Parents' praise and spatial language varied by task but not…
Spatial skills, but not spatial anxiety, mediate the gender difference in number line estimation
Recently, there has been increasing evidence showing that males estimate whole numbers more accurately than females on the number line. However, relatively little is known about what factors contribute to this gender gap. The current study explored potential mediators of the gender difference in number line estimation, including spatial skills and spatial anxiety. In the Fall (time-point 1 [T1]), 490 children from kindergarten through fourth grad…
This is hard!” Children’s and parents’ talk about difficulty during dyadic interactions
Children's beliefs about the contribution of effort and ability to success and failure shape their decisions to persist or give up on challenging tasks, with consequences for their academic success. But how do children learn about the concept of "challenge"? Prior work has shown that parents' verbal responses to success and failure shape children's motivational beliefs. In this study, we explore another type of talk-parent and child talk about di…
Parental intrusive homework support and math achievement: Does the child’s mindset matter
Prior research shows that when parents monitor, check, and assist in completing homework without an invitation, their children's motivation and academic achievement often decline. We propose that intrusive support from parents might also send the message that children are incompetent, especially if they believe their intelligence is fixed. We tested whether children's mindsets moderate the negative link between parents' intrusive homework support…
The transfer effect of mental rotation training on arithmetic skill: The role of state anxiety and arithmetic strategy use
Spatial skills in early childhood are key predictors of mathematical achievement. Previous studies have found that training mental rotation can transfer to arithmetic skills; however, some studies have failed to replicate this transfer effect, or observed transfer effects only in certain types of arithmetic problems. Even in studies where transfer effects were observed, the underlying mechanisms of this transfer have not been explored. This study…
Psychology (23 works) · Developmental psychology (19 works) · Cognitive and developmental aspects of mathematical skills (10 works) · Early Childhood Education and Development (10 works) · Education, Achievement, and Giftedness (8 works) · Mathematics education (8 works) · Social Psychology (8 works) · Cognition (7 works) · Mathematics Education and Teaching Techniques (7 works) · Academic achievement (6 works)