The University of New Mexico (UNM) announced College of Education & Human Sciences (COEHS) Research Professor H. Lee Swanson and Dr. Stefania Petcu are commencing a study to delve into the cognitive processes that could impede monolingual and English language learners in enhancing their math performance. The research, primarily focused on students' mathematical proficiency and memory-related areas, is anticipated to shed light on the underpinnings of learning challenges faced by these student groups.
The project traces its roots back to 2017 when an ambitious initiative was kickstarted. In 2017, Research Professor H. Lee Swanson initiated a research project supported by over $2 million in funding from the National Science Foundation (NSF). His focus was to examine the math performance of Spanish-speaking students who are also English learners, investigating the potential influence of challenges in working memory on their low scores, according to a press release by UNM.
Swanson highlighted his motivation for conducting this intricate research. "There hadn't been much work done on learning which involves the second language and its relationship to learning math and reading. It's kind of a confusing area when you deal with English language learners because you have a hard time coming up with measures that accurately capture their performance, so that's kind of what got me interested in this particular research," said Swanson, according to a press release by UNM.
The researcher’s intensive observations over five years provided invaluable insights into the interconnectedness of several key academic factors. Over a five-year period, Swanson observed and analyzed the engagement of hundreds of English language learners in math problem-solving activities at different grade levels, revealing a correlation between math, cognitive, language, and behavioral outcomes with classroom observations of math instructional activities, according to a press release by UNM.
The essential question regarding improvement in working memory was brought to the fore by Swanson, hinting at a distinct approach in their intervention. "It's the million-dollar question–how can we improve working memory? Our intervention is different from the way schools do it in the curriculum, but we think within the curriculum we can make some changes to test out," said Swanson, according to a press release by UNM. "We have found some things in our past intervention studies that can raise performance in monolingual children. We've done that."
