Turkish Children’s Cognitive Representation of Number in Comparison to Children in China, France, Japan, Korea, Sweden, and United States

Cross-national studies demonstrate that the East Asian students are more successful relative to their Western counterparts in mathematics. In these studies, there are some evidences indicating the effect of East Asian numerical language on mathematical thinking, especially on cognitive representation of number and understanding of base-ten concepts. It is hypothesized that language characteristics on representing numerical concepts could be an important factor in East Asian students’ success. The aim of this study was to add Turkey, whose numerical language characteristics are between East Asian and Western language groups, to these research studies. According to our hypothesis, Turkish students are expected to perform at a level between East Asian and Western students. It was found that Turkish students performed slightly better than Western students, but much lower than all East Asian students in the study. So, it is concluded that language seems to be a minimal factor in mathematical thinking and learning. Also, when it is considered that Turkey is below all of these countries in cross-national test results such as TIMSS, PISA, it can be claimed that apart from language there might be other factors for mathematical performance cross-nationally.