The Future of Education

This paper presents an investigation into whether assessments of verbal working memory are better measures of language learning than traditional vocabulary tests for young schoolchildren from diverse socioeconomic and linguistic backgrounds. Participants were 120 school beginners, divided into high and low socioeconomic groups. The groups contained equal numbers of English first- and second-language speakers. All were being educated in English. The results suggest that while socioeconomic status accounts for considerable variance in vocabulary measures, it only explains very small amounts of variance in working memory measures, suggesting that the latter measures are less influenced by socioeconomic status.  In addition, the high socioeconomic group performed significantly better on the two vocabulary tests relative to the low socioeconomic group, while there were no significant differences between the groups on all but one of the four working memory tests. Thus, working memory assessments appear to be less influenced by socioeconomic factors and may constitute fairer forms of evaluating language learning for children from differing socioeconomic and linguistic backgrounds. By extension, training children on working memory strategies in the classroom may have positive effects on their linguistic abilities.