Mathematical Achievement as a Proxy for Measuring Quality of Education among Non-Native English Speakers // التّحصيل الرّياضيّ مؤشّرًا لقياس جودة التّعليم لدى غير النّاطقين بالإنجليزيّة

Abstract

This study aims to examine the role of mathematical achievement in explaining cultural differences in neuropsychological performance. A comprehensive neuropsychological battery was administrated to 54 individuals from two different cultures: (27 Spaniard and 27 Colombians). Several studies have demonstrated that the quality of education measured by reading ability tests may explain cultural differences in neuropsychological test performance. These studies have been conducted mostly among English speakers within the same educational system. Being a non-phonemic language, English allows for the reading of low-frequency words to be used as a measure of the quality of education. However, this might not be useful in the case of phonemic languages, such as Spanish. Moreover, it is difficult to compare the quality of education measured by reading ability in cultures with different languages or different educational systems. The results of this study reveal significant differences between these group on the majority of neuropsychological tests. All these differences disappeared when the effect of mathematical achievement was controlled. Thus, mathematical achievement may be considered as a measure of quality of education when studying cultural neuropsychological differences.