Congratulations to Iro Xenudou-Dervou and Ian Jones who have each won a British Academy/Leverhulme Small Research Grant.
Iro’s work will be on cross-linguistic effects on adult numeracy. Research with children has shown that language can be important, in part because number-naming systems vary across languages. In Dutch, for example, the unit is named first, followed by the decade (e.g., 52 is “tweeënvijftig” or “two and fifty”). In adults, however, the role of language has largely been ignored. In this study, Iro will be using a novel eye-movement approach to specify the effect of language on adults’ numeracy and form a unique evidence base to influence theories of numerical cognition.
Ian will work with his colleague Jodie Hunter from Massey University in New Zealand to undertake the first large-scale, cross-cultural study to examine how teacher knowledge and classroom resources explain individual differences in student understanding of equivalence. Through a cross-jurisdiction design, this project will enable the researchers to interpret the role of teacher knowledge in the absence and presence of varied mandatory textbooks. The project will last 17 months, and Iro is involved in this one too - she will act as a consultant.