Mathematics Education Research JOHnIal
2001, Vol. 13, No.1, 15-27
Writing Chinese and Mathematics Achievement:A
Study with Chinese-American Undergraduates .
Chieh Li
Northeastern University
Ronald Nuttall
Boston College
Two recent studies indicated that writing Chinese is correlated to ChineseAmerican (CA) students' spatial skills. The current study investigated whether
writing Chinese would have the same relationship to mathematics skills. The
Scholastic Assessment Test-Mathematics (SAT-Math) scores were analysed for 150
CA undergraduates: 42 writers of Chinese and 108 non-writers of Chinese. The
results suggested a strong correlation between writing Chinese and success on SATMath. An underlying mechanism may be the common cognitive components that
encompass writing Chinese, spatial tasks, and SAT-Math. Contrary to previous
findings with other populations in the USA, CA females scored slightly higher on
SAT-Math than males. The finding supports the cultural relativity theory of gender
difference on SAT-Math.
Chinese students have a record of higher performance in mathematics. At the
.31st International Mathematics Olympics the Chinese students achieved the
highest score. Their score on geometry was perfect (Zhang & Kuo, 1990). Previous
studies with elementary (Stevenson, Chen & Lee, 1993; Stevenson, Lee, Chen &
Lummis, 1990) and high school students (Byrnes, Hong & Xing, 1997) indicated
that Chinese students scored higher than their American peers did in mathematics.
Furthermore, Chinese-Americans also scored higher on rnathematics than their
Euro-American peers (Huntsinger & Jose, 1997). Scholars have been exploring the
causes of Chinese students' high achievement in mathematics from various
perspectives. Researchers have suggested many possible contributing factors,
including: More mathematics courses in high school in China (Xu & Farrell, 1992);
the quality of classroom instruction (Stigler & Stevenson, 1991); parents' emphasis
on academic achievement (Steinberg, Dormbusch, & Brown, 1992); parents'
facilitation of mathematics (Huntsinger & Jose, 1997); a belief in effort (Skinner,
Wellborn, & Connell, 1990); and ability (Steinberg, Dormbusch, & Brown, 1992).
Within the ability domain, spatial ability has been found to contribute significantly
to mathematics achievement (Casey, Nuttall, Pezaris, & Benbow, 1995).
Two recent studies (Li, Nuttall, & Zhao, 1999; Li, Nuttall, & Zhu, 1999) with
Chinese-American undergraduates examined how one dimension of culturewritten language-is related to success on spatial problems such as the Piagetian
Water Level Task (WLT, see Piaget & Inhelder, 1956) and the Vandenberg Mental
Rotation Test (MRT, see Vandenberg &. Kuse, 1978). After examining the
. relationship of Chinese characters to the Cartesian coordinate system, Li, Nuttal, &
Zhao speculated that the process of writing Chinese characters might provide more
experience with spatial relations in the coordinate system than the process of
writing English. The worksheet frame for beginning writers of English provides
horizontal lines but not a system with bath horizontal and vertical coordinates as
does the worksheet frame for writing Chinese characters (see Figure 1).
16
Li & Nuttall
/
"
I
I
I
I
Figure 1. A comparison of writing sample formats in English and Chinese.
English writing is predominantly linear, left to right, while Chinese writing is
two-dimensionat both up and down as well as left to right. To write the characters
correctly, the writer of Chinese first pays visual attention to the spatial position of
each stroke in reference to the middle, upper, and lower position of the square
frame, as well as its spatial relationship with other strokes. The learner needs to
mentally represent each stroke spatially, to copy each one accurately, and to learn
the spatial relations by heart through practice. This involves spatial memory. It is
. hypothesised (Li, Nuttall, & Zhao, 1999t that writing Chinese characters may
facilitate performance on spatial tasks because of cognitive skill similarities
between writing Chinese and spatial tasks-for example, visual attention to spatial
details, mental imagery, visual memory, and vertical and horizontal spatial
coordination.
This hypothesis leads to questions about whether the ability to write Chinese
characters is related to the high mathematics scores for Chinese students, as there
is an overlap in specific skills between MRT and the Scholastic Assessment TestMathematics (SAT-Math) (Linn & Petersen, 1986). Although high achievement in
mathematics needs multiple abilities, (e.g., numerical reasoning, abstract counting,
and verbal comprehension for word problems), mathematics ability as measured
by SAT-Math has a significant geometry component (Spaihts, 1997). There are
questions on lines and angles, triangles, quadrilaterals and other polygons, circles,
solid geometry, and coordinate geometry (Green & Wolt 1998). See Figure 2 for a
sample geometry question from SAT-Math. As writing Chinese has been found to
correlate to performance on spatial tasks, which are part of geometry test items,
and the latter constitute one third of SAT-Math questions, then writing Chinese
might be one of the contributors to the high SAT-Math scores for ChineseAmerican students. Further support for this possibility is the strong relationship
between spatial ability and SAT-Math. For instance, the MRT score has been found
to partially mediate gender differences in SAT-Math scores (Casey et al., 1995).
Scholars from different countries (Ellerton & Clarkson, 1996; Kaput, 1991) have
noted that culture and language affect mathematics teaching and learning. The use
of culturally developed symbol systems may restructure mental activity (Nunes,
1992) to make some mathematics tasks easier. For example, Chinese children were
found to outperform American children in abstract counting (Miller, Smith, Zhu, &
Zhang, 1995) and Japanese and Korean children outperformed French, Swedish
and American children in representing numbers correctly using a canonical base10 representation (Miura, Okamoto, Kim, Steere, & Fayot 1993). In addition, some
Writing Chinesc and .Mathcl1la tics Acllicuel11ent Among Cllillesf-AlIlcricall Ulldergraduatcs
17
studies (Miura, Okamoto, Vlahovic-Stetic, Kim, & Han, 1999) indicate that East
Asian languages may make the concept of fractions easier to understand, because
the concept of fractional part is embedded in the mathematics terms used for
fractions; These studies appear to suggest that East Asian languages might
facilitate some mathematics learning. However, the children in these studies were
examined in the context of Chinese, Japanese, or Korean cultures and educational
systems in contrast to children from different cultural backgrounds. Thus, there
may be strong educational or cultural factors involved besides language. The
present study attempts to explore the relationship between written language and
mathematics performance while controlling possible confounding factors such as
culture, race, and mathematics education in different countries. Thus, writers and
non-writers of Chinese characters from the Chinese-American group in the United
States were selected to participate in this study.
What is the area of quadrilateral ABCD?
y
C (5,6)
B(-2,3)
x
A (-2.-J)
D (5.-/)
Figure 2. A sample geometry question from SAT-Math.
If the hypothesised relationship exists between writing Chinese and.
mathematics, writers of Chinese should outperform non-writers of Chinese on
SAT-Math, providing that the two groups are equivalent in all other aspects. And
if writers of Chinese outperform non-writers of Chinese, the next question would
be whether this effect is associated with the common cognitive skill components
among the three types of tasks: writing Chinese, spatial tasks, and SAT-Math. This
would be indicated by these tasks correlating with each other at a statistically
significant level.
An alternative to the written language hypothesis is the possibility that a
general cognitive ability may be related to both SAT-Math scores and the ability to
write Chinese. The high correlation (1' "'" 0.60) between SAT-Verbal and SAT-Math
(Cohen, Swerdilik, & Smith, 1992) provides support for this alternative
explanation, indicating that people with high verbal scores may also score high on
18
Li [.." Nuttall
mathematics. If this explanation were true, then statistically cQntrolling for the
effect of verbal ability on mathematics ability would attenuate the relationship
. between the ability to write Chinese and mathematics ability.
Another alternative hypothesis is that Chinese-Americans who write Chinese
characters also speak Chinese. The literature on the relationship between Chinese
language and mathematics achievement indicates that oral Chinese may also
facilitate mathematics learning, yet Miller et al. (1995) found that preschool
Chinese children (who usually have not yet learned how to write Chinese
characters) excelled in abstract counting. Thus, speaking Chinese rather than
writing Chinese might affect the performance on mathematics. If this hypothesis
were· true, then the effect of writing Chinese would disappear when the factor of
speaking Chinese was controlled. If the spoken language advantage found in
children is to be generalised to college students outside China, then the Chinese~
Americans who speak Chinese mostly (it is almost impossible for a college student
brought up in the USA not to speak English at all) should outperform their peers
who speak English only on SAT-Math when other conditions are similar and the
factor of writing Chinese is controlled.
In addition to differences in written language, SAT-Verbal, and oral language,
there may be other differences between Chinese-Americans who write Chinese
versus those who do not. However, it has not been feasible to cover all the factors
identified earlier as relating to mathematics achievement. The present study
focuses on one of the many possible contributing factors-written language. The
alternative hypotheses of SAT-Verbal and spoken language are also tested. It
should be noted that the present study is not designed to determine a cause. It can
only provide a statistical relationship. This relationship provides support for the
hypothesised cause.
Although a significant gender effect on SAT-Math was found in the previous
studies in the United States (Benbow, 1988; Casey et al., 1995; Rosser, 1989), recent
studies in China (Byrnes et al., 1997; Xu & Farrell, 1992) and Japan (Takahira, 1995)
did not find significant gender differences in mathematics test scores. Based on
their findi!1g$1 Byrnes et al. (1997) thought that gender differences on SAT-Math
might be culture-specific. If Byrnes and colleagues' hypothesis were true, it may
predict that no gender differences exist among Chinese students in China in SATMath. However, it is difficult to use the existing literature from China and the
United States to predict the role gender plays on SAT-Math for Chinese-American
students, because Chinese-Americans have the influence of both cultures. ChineseAmericans were educated in American schools and grew up in the American
culture although they have Chinese cultural and biological heritage. To add a
bicultural dimension to the literature, gender effect is examined.
Method
Participants
To answer our research question, it was crucial to find two comparable groups
that differed in their ability to write Chinese. Literate and illiterate Chinese in
China were not used because they are not comparable due to difference in
Writing Chinese al/d Mathematics Achievement Among Chinese-Americnn Undergraduntes
19
educational opportunities. Writers of Chinese and non-writers of Chinese among
Chinese-American college students are more comparable because of similar ethnic
and socioeconomic background, and educational level. Participants were 150 of the
189 Chinese-American undergraduates who responded to an advertisement in
colleges from the Boston, Massachusetts area. Thirty-nine students were not
included in the study due to incomplete data. The Chinese writing group consisted
of 42 undergraduates (19 males, 23 females) who were able to write Chinese
characters. The non-Chinese writing group consisted of 108 undergraduates (46
males, 62 females) who were not able to write Chinese characters. The participants
had majors in science, engineering, business management, computer science,
psychology, English and social sciences. A statistics test indicates no significant
difference (p = 0.50) of distribution of mathematics/ science/engineer majors and
liberal art majors between the writers and non-writers of Chinese. Ages ranged
from 18 to 23 with a mean age of 19. Writers and non-writers of Chinese were from
allmajors and colleges.
In this study, Chinese-Americans were defined as Chinese descendants born in
the USA or who completed their middle and high school education in the USA.
The ability to write notes or letters in Chinese characters was used to distinguish
between the Chinese writing and non-Chinese-writing groups.
Participants reported this information in a questionnaire of cultural
background. Twenty of the participants were randomly checked for the accuracy of
their self-report of ability to write Chinese characters with a writing exercise. The
.results confirmed the participants' self reports in all cases. In the questionnaire of
cultural background, participants reported the extent to which they spoke Chinese.
Five mostly spoke Chinese, 52 spoke Chinese as well as English, 82 mostly spoke
English, and 11 spoke English only.
Measures
The Scholastic Assessment Test mathematics (SAT-Math) and verbal (SATVerbal) scores (developed by the Educational Testing Service, USA) were llsed in
this study. SAT-Verbal consists of sections that include analogies, reading
comprehension, antonyms, and sentence completion. SAT-Math assesses the
understanding and application of mathematical principles and numerical
reasoning ability, including basic arithmetic, geometry, and algebraic concepts.
The participants reported the SAT-Ma th and SAT-Verbal scores that were used
for their college admissions. For a reliability measure of the self-report, 19 selfreports were randomly checked by sighting their records. Consistency between
self-reported and official scores was 0.956 for SAT-Math and 0.857 for SAT-Verbal.
The range of the reported scores was wide (from 240to 800).
To examine the relationship between spatial tasks (which have a high
correlation with writing Chinese) and mathematics achievement, the WLT test
results from Li, Nuttall, and Zhao's (1999) study and the MRT scores from Li,
Nuttall, and Zhu's (1999) study were used. The standard paper-and-pencil WLT
has a total of eight drawings of bottles tilted at different degrees: 0, 45, 90, 135, and
225. Students were told to imagine that each bottle was being held over a tabletop,
represented by the line under each bottle. They were to imagine that the bottle was
20
Li
[--I
Nuttall
sealed and that it was half-filled with water. They were asked to draw a line
representing what they thought the surface of the water would look like in each
bottle. The student's score was the proportion of water lines, which were within 5
degrees of horizontal.
.
The MRT is a paper-and-pencil version of the Shepard and Metzler (971)
Mental Rotation Task. The MRT involves mentally rotating an object that is
presented as a two-dimensional drawing in three-dimensional space. The test has
two sections. Each section has 10 items. Pi;lrticipants are allowed 5 minutes to
complete each section. The task is to correctly match two out of four choices to a
standard. The two correct choices are identical to the standard butare presented in
rotated positions. The distracting stimuli are mirror images or slight variations of
the figure. The MRT score is 2 if both choices are correct, and zero if neither is
correct or if one is correct and one is not correct. If the participant makes only one
choice and this is correct, the score is 1. The maximum possible score is 40.
Table 1 summarises all the tests used in the current study.
Table 1
Summary of Tests Used in the Study
Test
Mean
Maximum
Minimum
1.
SAT-Math
CAu score
500
638
800
800
200
240
2. SAT-Verbal
CA score
500
548
800
800
200
200
24.57
40
40
0
0
1
0
0.25
3.MRT
CA score
4.WLT
CA score
0.8785
1
aCA refers to Chinese-Americans in the current study.
Analysis
A three-phase strategy was used to analyse the data. First an analysis of
variance (ANOVA) was conducted to investigate the relationship between writing
Chinese and SAT-Math. This analysis examined whether the effect of writing
Chinese was statistically significant. In this analysis, the alternative hypotheses
(SAT-Verbal and speaking Chinese) and the gender effect were also tested. Second,
a multiple regression (which measures whether each variable is needed in the
model given that the other variables are there) was used to examine the extent to
which writing Chinese, along with MRT, WLT, gender, SAT-Verbal score, and
speaking Chinese, predicted SAT-Math (the dependent variable). Third, the
relationships among writing Chinese, WLT, MRT, SAT-Verbat and SAT-Math
were examined through multiple correlation analysis (which indicates the extent
these variables correlate with each other, and whether these correlations are
Writillg Chillese (l/ld Mathematics AchieZ'e1l1ent Among Chinese-American Llndcrgrndllntes
21
statistically significant).
Results
Written Language Hypothesis
Table 2 shows that writers of Chinese characters scored significantly higher
than non-writers of Chinese characters on SAT-Math for both males and females of
the Chinese-American group. The effect of writing Chinese remained significant (p
= 0.003, see Table 3) after both SAT-Verbal and speaking Chinese were controlled.
The results support the written language hypothesis.
Table 2
SAT-Verbal and SAT-Math Scores for Chinese-Americans
SAT Verbal
Females
Males
SAT Mathematics
Females
Males
Chinese writers
M
SD
N
550
125
22
517
128
19
703
80
23
645
105
19
Non-Chinese writers
M
SD
N
573
94
61
531
110
46
629
112
62
613
107
46
. Alternative hypotheses
On SAT-verbat Chinese writers scored lower than non-Chinese writers (see
Table 2), but this difference was not statistically significant [F(1)46) = 1.02; P =
0.314]. Overall, the Chinese-American group scored higher on SAT-Math (M = 638,
SD = 108) than SAT-Verbal (M = 548, SD = 111). The results do not support the
alternative interpretation that Chinese_writers scored high on SAT-Math may be
due to their high verbal ability as measured by SAT-Verbal.
Four out of 5 who mostly speak Chinese also write Chinese, 24 out of 52
bilinguals write Chinese, and 14 out of 82 of those who. mostly speak English write
Chinese. Although students who speak Chinese mostly scored slightly higher on
SAT-Math (M = 670, SD = 106, N = 5) than those who speak Englishohly (M = 646,
SD = 97, N = 11), the difference was not statistically significant (t(14) = 0.44, P =
0.667). To exclude the possibility that this insignificance was caused by the small
sample size, those who speak Chinese mostly (5) and those who speak both
Chinese and English well (52) were combined to compare with those who speak
English mostly (82) or only (11). The result also indicated no difference between
the two groups (t(148) = 0.648, P =0.518). Those who speak Chinese and English
equally well did not score higher than those who speak English mostly. There was
no overall effect of speaking Chinese on SAT-Math (see Table 3). The results do not
support the oral language hypothesis.
Li
22
[-f
Nuttall
Table 3
Analysis of Variance il1 SAT-Math Scores
Source
Sum of
squares
df
Mean
square
F
p
Corrected Model
475125.60
5
95025.12
12.19
0.000
Intercept
615660.03
1
615660.03
79.01
0.000
4295.43
317350.41
1
1
4295.43
317350.41
0.55
40]3
0.459
0.000
12066.65
1
1
1
1.55
8.84
1.32
0.215
68898.93
10261.97
12066.65
68898.93
10261.97
110653.1.16
62100100.0
1581656.76
142
148
147
Covariates
Speak Chinese
SAT-Verbal
Main Effects
Gender
WrtChinese a
Gender x
WrtChinese
Error
Total
Corrected Total
0.003
0.253
7792.47
aWhChinese refers to the ability to write Chinese characters.
The Extent to Which Writing Chinese Predicted SAT-Math
The analysis of variance provided a positive answer to the research question
but it could not tell why was so. To further explore the cause, we assumed that
SAT-Math was a dependent variable and conducted a mUltiple regression to
examine the extent to which other factors predicted the SAT-Math score. Writing
Chinese, speaking Chinese, MRT, WLT, Gender, and SAT-Verbal were the
independent variables. The results are shown in Table 4.
Table 4
Multiple Regression of SAT-Math
WLT, and Gender
Variable
SAT-Verbal
Speak Chinese
Write Chinese
MRT
WLT
Gender
B
011
SAT-Verbal, Speak Chinese, Write Chinese, MRT,
SE B
fl
t
P
0.08
5.58
0.97
0.333
0.16
2.12
0.036
0.80
0.22
2.81
0.006
77.94
40.97
0.14
1.90
0.059
23.46
14.54
0.11
1.61
0.109
0.41
12.18
36.73
'2.34
0.07
0.43
12.55
17.32
0.000
Writing Chinese IJJld Mathematics Achievement Among Chinese-American Ullliergrndliates
23
The regression was significant (F(6, 141) = 14.03/ 17 < 0.0001); R2 was 0.374 and
the adjusted R2 was 0.347. The roles speaking Chinese and gender played on SATMath were not statistically significant but SAT-Verbal, writing Chinese/and MRT
were. WLT was not as significant when other factors entered the equation (see
Table 4). When the effects of· SAT-Verbal and speaking Chinese were controlled
(entered first into the regression equation), the statistical significance of writing
Chinese and MRT improved while the gender effect remained insignificant.
Relationships Among Writing Chinese, MRT, WLT, SAT-Verbal, and
SAT-Math
The hypothesis that writing Chinese, MRT, WLT, and SAT-Verbal would be
related to SAT-Math was tested with Pearson Product-Moment correlation
coefficients. The results are presented in Table 5.
Table 5
Correlation of SAT-Math and SAT-Verbal With Writing Chinese MRT and WLT (N = 150)
l
SAT-Verbal
Write Chinese
1
MRT
WLT
SAT-Math
0.438
0.214
0.419
0.373
17 (J-tailed test)
0.000
0.003
0.000
0.000
-0.096
0.116
0.186
0.010
0.112
0.081
SAT-Verbal
17 (l-tailed test).
Although the correlation between SAT-Verbal and SAT-Math was significant,
it wa,s not as high as that for the non-Chinese-American sample from previous
studies (1' z 0.60/ see Cohen et al., 1992). Writing Chinese was significantly
correlated with SAT-Math but not correlated with SAT-Verbal.
For the total sample, MRT was significantly related to the SAT-Math score.
When examined in greater detail, the MRT correlation with SAT-Math varied from
a low of 0.33 to a high of 0.50 and was significant whenever the sample was greater
than 30. The correlation between MRT and SAT-Math was slightly higher for
females (1' = 0.50) than for males (1' = 0.41).
For the total sample, SAT-Verbal was significantly related to the MRT score.
However, the correlation between SAT-Verbal and MRT varied from a low of 0.18
to a high of 0.33. The highest correlation was observed among the Chinese writing
males. Males had slightly higher correlation between SAT-Verbal and MRT (1' =
0.26) than did the females (1' = 0.16). Two patterns of correlation emerged. For
females whose mean MRT score was lower than the males the correlation
between MRT and SAT-Math was higher than that of the males. For males whose
mean SAT-Verbal score (M = 524/ SD = 117 N = 66) was lower than the females (M
= 564/ SO = 106 N = 83)/ the correlation between SAT-Verbal and MRT was higher
than that of the females.
There was a significant correlation between the WLT score and SAT-Math. The
l
,
l
1
1
Li c=r Nuttall
24
correlation between SAT-Verbal and WLT was not statistically significant.
Gender
For the Chinese-American sample, the gender difference on SAT-Math was not
significant (see Table 3). Females scored slightly higher on SAT-Math than did
males. However,there was a female advantage on SAT-Verbal [F(1,148) = 5.77; P =
0.018]. For neither SAT-Verbal nor SAT-Math was the interaction between the
ability to write Chinese and gender statistically significant.
Discussion
Writing Chinese and Mathelnatics Achievement
The results of this study indicate that the ability to write Chinese is related to
mathematics achievement among Chinese-American college students. The Chinese
writing group performed significantly better on SAT-Math than the non-Chinese
'writing group. In addition, the relationship remains significant even when SATVerbal and speaking Chinese are controlled. The significant correlation between
writing Chinese and spatial tasks (WLT and MRT), writing Chinese and SAT-Math,
and spatial tasks and SAT-Math, might reflect considerable shared cognitive skill
components among these tasks. It is possible that learning how to write Chinese
facilitates spatial skills, and these skills contribute to geometry achievement, which
in turn contributes to success on SAT-Math. Regression analysis indicates that the
best predictor of SAT-Math is SAT-Verbal, then MRT, and then writing Chinese
characters.
Although oral Chinese may have facilitated some mathematics tasks for young
children in China, it does not have a significant effect on SAT-Math for ChineseAnierican college students. One reason may be that the oral language effect found
in young children in China from previous studies may not be generalisable to
Chinese-American college students. It is also possible that oral language itself is
not a strong factor, but that it appears significant because it is combined with other
cultural and educational factors. Another possibility may be that bilingualism
(over one third of the participants are bilingual) has countered the oral language
advantage on SAT-Math. The interplay in the mental process between the
language codes may ease or detract from learning (Cummins, 1979). SAT-Math is a
timed test. It is administered in English. This may be disadvantageous for those
bilingual students who first learned the mathematics counting systems and
concepts in Chinese and are still used to thinking in Chinese. These studeDts may
need longer time to complete the tasks because they may have to switch languages
in the problem-solving process.
Why Do Chinese-American Females Score High on SAT-Math?
Overall, the Chinese-American group scored in the above average to high
range on spatial tasks and SAT-Math whereas their SAT-Verbal scores were in the
average range. Caution should be exercised when evaluating their SAT-Verbal
Writing CII il/ese aI/d Mathematics AclIieuement Amol/g CII iI/ese-American Undergmd [{ates
25
scores and their effects on other aptitudes, because approximately one quarter of
them were bilingual and more than half of them had parents who speak Chinese at
home (Li! 1998). These bilingual factors may have affected their SAT-Verbal scores.
Although a male advantage in spatial tasks was found in previous studies with
Chinese-Americans (Li, Nuttall, & Zhao, 1999; Li, Nuttall, & Zhu, 1999), this study
did not find any male advantage in mathematics skills. This finding is contrary to
the male advantage in mathematics found in other populations in the USA by
Benbow (1988) and Rosser (1989) but consistent with the findings of gender
equality in mathematics performance found in China (Byrnes et al., 1997; Xu &
Farrell! 1992) and Japan (Takahira, 1995). In the gender profile of mathematics
achievement, Chinese-American students appear to resemble peers in China more
than peers in the USA. Future studies may want to find out why is so. Meanwhile,
the current study may be considered as a support for Byrnes and colleagues' (1997)
cultural relativity theory of gender differences on SAT-Math.
Although the Chinese-American students fall into the category of the high
achieving students that Casey et al. (1995) specified in their study, we did not find
the mediating effect of spatial ability on gender differences in mathematics
aptitude that Casey et al. found. However, Casey et al. did not describe the cultural
background of their sample. Thus, we cannot analyse from a cultural perspective
why their finding did not apply .to Chinese-Americans. Verbal ability might help
Chinese-American females on mathematics tasks. Chinese-American females
scored significantly higher on SAT-Verbal than males, and SAT-Verbal correlated
highly with SAT-Math.
Limitations
It should be noted that although the explained variance in SAT-Math was
substantial, 65%· of the variance remains unexplained. In addition to writing
Chinese, spatial and verbal abilities, there may be other differences between
writers and non-writers of Chinese that may be related to mathematics.
achievement. Due to limited scope, the present study did not control all the other
factors discussed at the beginning of this article. Future studies may examine the
relationship between written language and mathematics ability in the context of all
these factors, including values, practice of ethnic culture, parental involvement in
education, the number and quality of mathematics courses, effort, general
intellectual ability, and socioeconomic condition.
Also, caution should be used when extending the findings of this study to
Chinese-Americans in general, because the sample was composed of four-year
college students! a high-ability group. A sample of diverse ability levels should be
included in future studies to strengthen generalisability of the findings of the
current study. Another limitation of this study is that the SAT scores were obtained
from participants' verbal reports. Although the reliability values for the selfreported scores were high for the random sample from the entire group, we cannot
totally exclude possible memory factors and conformity to social expectations at
this time.
Li 8 Nuttall
26
Acknowledgements
Heart-felt thanks to Northeastern University for project funding, and to all the
Chinese-American participants from colleges in the Boston, MAarea. We also want
to thank Dr. Louis Kruger and reviewers for their valuable critiques, and Dr. Bill
Barton for his thorough editing of the paper.
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Authors
Chieh Li, Department of Counseling and Applied Educational Psychology, 203 Lake Hall,
Northeastern University, Boston, MA 02115. E-mail: <[email protected]>.
Ronald L. Nuttall, Department of Educational Research, Measurement, & Evaluation, Boston
College, Campion Hall, Chestnut Hill, MA 02467. E-mail: <[email protected]>.