Associations of Magnitude Comparison and Number Line Estimation with Mathematical Competence: A Comparative Review

The magnitude comparison task and the number line estimation task are widely used in the literatures on numerical cognition, mathematical development and mathematics education. It has been suggested that these tasks assess a central component of mathematical competence and, thus, are useful tools for diagnosing mathematical competence and development. In the current chapter, we provide a comparative literature review of how strongly and under which conditions magnitude comparison and number line estimation are associated with broader mathematical competence. We found that both tasks reliably correlate with counting, arithmetic, and mathematical school achievement. Participants use different sets of solutions strategies in the two tasks, and the correlations with competence are higher for number line estimation than for magnitude comparison suggesting that the two tasks assess related but partly different aspects of mathematical competence. Number line estimation might be a more useful tool for diagnosing and predicting broader mathematical competence than magnitude comparison.