Published on December 17, 2024

Corrie Bonomi Named Fifth Recipient of Trawick-Smith Award

Corrie Bonomi discusses her research with Jeffrey Trawick-Smith

Corrie Bonomi has been named the fifth recipient of the Jeffrey and Nancy Trawick-Smith Early Childhood Undergraduate Research Award, which supports students who are conducting scientific, empirical studies on young children within the Center for Early Childhood Education that, according to the fund, “will yield practical knowledge in early education and development and, thus, promote the well-being of young children and their families.” The fund was created by Jeffrey and Nancy Trawick-Smith to provide opportunities for undergraduates to gain research knowledge and skills by assisting with research and travel expenses to present at national conferences.

Bonomi, an Eastern student majoring in Sociology and Early Childhood Education, used the award to conduct a research study examining the cognitive processing skills of dual language learners during math learning in a supportive classroom environment. Under the mentorship of Dr. Sudha Swaminathan, Bonomi evaluated and observed monolingual and dual-language learner preschoolers’ abilities to engage in a series of problem-solving exercises. Bonomi focused on identifying the math reasoning and executive functioning skills demonstrated by the preschoolers while engaging in math content learning.

Bonomi’s research will address the following questions:

Given a supportive classroom environment and instructional delivery, how do monolingual and dual-language preschoolers perform in terms of math skills and math processing abilities?
Given a supportive classroom environment and instructional delivery, what assets of executive functioning and math reasoning do monolingual and dual language preschoolers exhibit?

Bonomi presented her research at CREATE in April 2024. Below is her poster from the session.