لخّصلي

This study investigated how gesturing aids children's learning, specifically focusing on whether the accuracy of gestures matters. Researchers manipulated gesturing during a math lesson, assigning children to one of three conditions: correct gestures, partially correct gestures, or no gestures. Results showed that children using correct gestures learned significantly more than those with partially correct gestures, who in turn learned more than the no-gesture group. This effect was mediated by whether children incorporated the grouping strategy (implicitly conveyed in their gestures) into their verbal explanations. The findings suggest that body movements contribute not only to recalling existing knowledge but also to creating new knowledge, indicating that teaching learners specific hand movements can lay a foundation for learning new concepts. Even initially rote gestures, modeled after those used by successful problem-solvers, became meaningful within the learning context. This study extends previous research showing gesture's positive impact on learning and memory by proposing a mechanism: gestures help children extract information from their own movements, potentially facilitating the internalization of problem-solving strategies. The study controlled for computational speed, and the effect of gesture condition on post-test performance was significantly reduced when the mediating factor (incorporating the strategy into speech) was included in the analysis.

ABSTRACT-How does gesturing help children learn? Ges- turing might encourage children to extract meaning im- plicit in their hand movements. If so, children should be sensitive to the particular movements they produce and learn accordingly. Alternatively, all that may matter is that children move their hands. If so, they should learn regardless of which movements they produce. To investi gate these alternatives, manipulated gesturing during a math lesson. We found that children required to produce correct gestures learned more than children required to produce partially correct gestures, who learned more than children required to produce gestures. This effect was mediated by whether children took information conveyed solely in their gestures and added it to their speech. The findings suggest that body movements are involved not only in processing old ideas, but also in creating new ones. We may be able to lay foundations for new knowledge simply by telling learners how to move their hands.

Why do people gesture when they talk? Perhaps people gesture for their listeners. After all, listeners can glean information from the gestures speakers produce (MeNeill, Cassell, & MeCul- lough, 1994). However, people also gesture when no one in watching (Alibali, Heath, & Myers, 2001; Krauss, Dushay, Chen, & Rauscher, 1995) and even when talking to blind indi- viduals (Iverson & Goldin-Meadow, 1998). So, perhaps people gesture for themselves. Indeed, children who produce gestures modeled by the teacher during a lesson are more likely to profit from the lesson than children who do not produce the gestures (Cook & Goldin-Meados, 2006), Gesturing may not only iden- tify children as ready to leam (Goldin-Meadow, Alibali, & Church, 1993), it may actually help them learn.However, to distinguish causation from correlation, re- searchers need to manipulate children's gesturing. Gesturing has been manipulated in studies of memory children told to gesture when trying to recall an event do, in fact, remember more about the vent than children prevented from gesturing (Ste- vanoni & Salmon, 2005), Gesturing has also been manipulated in studies of learning children told to gesture when explaining how they solved a math problem learn more when later given instruction in the problem than children told not to gesture (Broaders, Cook, Mitchell, & Goldin-Meadow, 2007). These studies suggest that gesturing can play a role in memory and learning, but they do not specify a mechanism. The goal of this study was to explore the mechanism by which gesturing plays a role in leaming.

One possibility is that the act of producing particular move- ments helps children focus on the information displayed in these movements. When children produce potentially meaningful movements in the right context, these movements may begin to take on meaning and, in this way, facilitate learning. If so, children should be sensitive to the specific information repre sented in the hand movements they produce and should leam when those movements highlight correct information. Alterna tively, the particular movements children produce in their hands may be irrelevant to learning all that may matter is that they move their hands (indeed, tapping in a rhythmic but meaning- less pattern has been shown to facilitate lexical access; Ravizza, 2003). If so, children should learn regardless of the particular hand movements they produce. To distinguish between these possible mechanisms, we manipulated not only whether chil- dren gestured during a math lesson, but also the particular gestures they produced.succeed on problems of this type often produce (Perry et al., 1988).

Children in the correct-gesture condition (n43) were the same problem, 6+3+4= +4, and were taught the same words plus the following gestures: point with V-hand to6+ 3, point with index finger to the blank. Note that if these two numbers are grouped together and summed, they generate the number that belongs in the blank. This grouping strategy is one that is also often spontaneously produced by children who succeed on problems of this type (Perry et al., 1988).

Children in the partially-correct-gesture condition (43) were shown the same problem and were taught the same words hut different gestures: V-hand pointing at 3+ 4, index finger pointing at the blank. The V-hand indicates numbers whose sum is not the correct answer. However, the V-hand does highlight the fact that two mumbers can be grouped, and, in conjunction with the point at the blank, the gesture emphasizes the fact that the equation has heo sides two aspects of the problem children find difficult. These gestures thus highlight the grouping oper- ation, which can be applied to two numbers in the problem to solve it correctly, but they indicate the wrong numbers. In this sense, the gestures are only partially correct.

All children then practiced the words or words and gestures they had been taught by repeating them in reference twn additional problems, 9+2+3+3and8+4+6= + 6, neither of which was solved by the children or the experi menter.

Math Lesson

Next, all children were given the same math lesson. The cx- perimenter winte one new problem on the board (e.g., 5+6+3 +3), filled in the correct answer, and then explained how he solved the problem by verbalizing the equivalence strategy in speech, tailoring it to the particular problem; he said, for ex ample, "I want to make one side equal to the other side: 5 plus 6 plus 3 equals 14, and 11 plus 3 oquals 14, so one side is equal to the other side." The experimenter produced no gestures during the lesson. Children were then given one new problem of their own and asked to first repeat the words or words and gestures. they had practiced, to then write an answer in the blank, and finally to repeat the words or words and gestures again. They were given nu feedsack on their answers. This alternating pro- cedure was repeated for 12 problems, 6 problems were solved by the experimenter, and 6 pmblems were solved by the child.

Posttest

After the lesson, children were given a posttest consisting of six problems comparable to those on the pretest, and asked to ex plain how they solved each problem. The number of problems solved correctly calculated for each child. Each child's explanations were coded to identify children who added grouping to their spoken repertoires after the lesson (e.g., a childwho had not mentioned grouping on the pretest said, "I added the 6 and 7 and put 13 in the blank," for the problem 6+7+4 shown+4 on the posttest).

Math Computation Speed

To account for possible differences in computational skills, we gave the children a sheet of paper with 20 problems of the form 4 +5 and asked them to solve the problems as quickly as possible. Time taken to solve the probleme was used as a mea- sure of computation speed (M=65.4 5. SD = 30.1: children solved almost all of the 20 problems correctly. M = 19.4, SD2.5).

RESULTS

We first verified that children followed our instructions during the lesson. All of the children in the two gesture conditions moved their hands on each of the 12 opportunities (two times on cach of the six problems), whereas no children in the no-gesture condition did. Moreover, children in the correct-gesture con dition correctly copied the gesture model they were shown he fore the lesson on 91% of the 12 opportunities, and children in the partially-correct gesture condition correctly copied the gesture model on 96% of the 12 opportunities.

We hypothesized that children told to produce correct ges tures would extract the grouping strategy from those gestures and, as a result, do better on the posttest than children told to produce partially correct gestures who, in turn, would do better than children told to produce no gestures in other words, we predicted that the effect of gesture condition on posttest per formance would be mediated by whether or not children added the grouping strategy to their spoken repertoires. To test this hypothesis, we computed a series of regression equations, as prescribed by Baron and Kenny (1986). According to this ap proach, three relations must hold to test for mediation.

First, the independent variable (gesture condition) must predict the dependent variable (posttest performance). To test this prediction, we rank-ordered conditions from no gesture (-1) to partially correct gesture (0) to correct gesture (+1) and regrowsed the rank ordering on poedtest performance (number of problems correct), using computation speed as a covariate; re- call that none of the children solved any of the problems cor rectly on the pretest. The more correct their gestures during the lesson, the better children performed on the posttest, controlling for differences in computation speed, 19, (125) = 2.23, p