FEHD's Prof Kerry Lee has been awarded a grant of HK$2.5 million by the French National Research Agency and the Research Grants Council of Hong Kong Joint Research Scheme this month.
Prof Lee, Head of the Department of Early Childhood Education, will use the grant to explore children’s math performance, as well as how this is affected when children are distracted, and how this changes as children age.
The project, The Role of Distraction on Children's Math Performance, is a collaboration with Prof Patrick Lemaire of CNRS & Aix-Marseille Université in France. It is one of the three projects awarded by the joint research scheme this year. Prof Lee and Prof Lemaire will compare children from Hong Kong and Marseille and will examine cultural differences in math learning, and try to identify individual characteristics that affect children’s sensitivity to distraction when dealing with math problems.
“Previous research on children’s math performance and development mainly looked at contextual factors associated with problem solving, strategy utilisation, and the characteristics of the problem solvers. However, in modern urban settings, external distraction can potentially play a big role and this has seldom been examined,” said Prof Lee.
“Executive control is necessary for the control of behaviour. We aim to find out how executive control helps when children are faced with distraction while solving math problems. The project will provide insight that helps in the refinement of classroom practices and curriculum designs in Hong Kong and France,” he added.
As Prof Lee’s grant success illustrates, FEHD seeks to build our research capacity through international collaboration and take the impact of our research to the NEXT LEVEL.
