The Relationship between Seriation and Number Line Comprehension: A Validation Study

This study investigated the effect on seriation performance of increasing both the salient features of the relevant dimension of a seriation task and the number of objects in the series as well as the predictive value of seriation tasks on number line comprehension. The subjects, N = 310, were children from pre-school, kindergarten and primary school Grades 1 and 2. The results in general showed that 10 to 37% of the pre-schoolers and young kindergartners were able to construct a correct series of tasks with six objects and in which the relevant feature was made more salient. In contrast, a sharp decrease in the seriation performance was observed for these children when the number of objects in the same seriation tasks had been increased from six to ten. The majority of the children solved the seriation tasks with six objects and salient dimensions perfectly. The increase in the number of objects from six to ten produced a decrease in the seriation performance varying between 4 and 25%. In primary school Grade 2, all the children were able to perform the different types of seriation tasks correctly. Stepwise multiple regression analysis revealed that a selection of six seriation tasks (three with six objects and three with ten objects) predicted a multiple R = .86 for the performance on the number line comprehension tasks. It was concluded that adding salient features to the seriation as well as varying the number of objects provided a set of tasks suitable for investigating the development of seriation in pre-schoolers and kindergarten children.