We investigated whether worked examples could be used to reduce cognitive load on mathematics learners who may have reduced available cognitive resources due to experiencing anxiety or excess stress. Across 2 days, 280 fifth-grade students learned from a difficult lesson on ratio, half of whom reviewed worked examples at key problem-solving…

Research on the multimedia effect in testing indicates that static representational pictures (RPs) and, potentially, dynamic RPs that further subdivide the picture into segments may support students' mental processing. This might be especially relevant for mathematical word problems that pose high mental demands in a multistage solution process.…

Early numerical skills are important not only for later mathematical achievement but for overall achievement and are associated with later income, health, and quality of life. Socioeconomic disparities in numerical skills are visible before children begin school, and widen throughout schooling. It is, therefore, important to support the…

There are consistent correlations between mathematics achievement, attitudes, and anxiety, but the longitudinal relations among these constructs are not well understood nor are sex differences in these relations. To address this gap, mathematics achievement, attitudes, and anxiety were longitudinally assessed for 342 (169 boys) adolescents from…

Fraction arithmetic facility is fundamental to learning more advanced math topics. However, attaining the ability to add and subtract fractions is hard for many students. The present longitudinal study examined students' growth on simple addition and subtraction word problems between fourth and sixth grades (N = 536). Latent class growth analyses…

The current study investigated the relation between spatial ability and children's math performance, as well as the potential mechanisms underlying this relation including numerical magnitude knowledge, understanding of arithmetic operations, and word-problem representation. A sample of 221 Asian sixth graders (age 11, 129 boys) completed a series…

Procedural flexibility is an important skill for algebra. Although prior work has focused on measuring students' procedural flexibility using arithmetic problems, word problems may also capture students' flexibility because of their open-ended nature. To date, no published study has examined the use of word problems as another measure of…

Elementary school mathematics instruction aims to develop children's understanding of both numerical and spatial mathematics--two key areas of mathematical learning. The present study explored how learning within one of these areas may impact the other. Specifically, it investigated whether a measurement-to-number intervention designed to increase…

Mathematics anxiety is a major impediment to achievement in mathematics and science academic domains. Although important steps have been made in understanding the psychological processes of mathematics anxiety, as well as developing promising interventions, less is known about the relationship among mathematics anxiety, affective and biological…

The purpose of this study was to explore the paths by which word-problem intervention, with versus without embedded prealgebraic reasoning instruction, improved word-problem performance. Students with mathematics difficulty (MD; n = 304) were randomly assigned to a business-as-usual condition or 1 of 2 variants of word-problem intervention. The…

It is well known that fraction knowledge is relevant for later success in mathematics. However, many students still face difficulties when dealing with fractions. Predictors of fraction knowledge have been widely examined. Systematizing "mathematical" predictors, whether their predictive contributions are direct or indirectly mediated…

Mathematical skills significantly predict students' educational paths. Mathematical achievement varies depending on the student's socioeconomic status (SES). However, the extent of the SES gap for specific mathematical skills remains unclear. In this cross-sectional study, we examined age variations by SES in three mathematical skills, applied…

The home numeracy environment (HNE) is an essential factor to explain family engagement in relation to numeracy. Research in this field has mostly focused on English-speaking families and has not taken into consideration cultural differences that contextualize the home environment. Measuring HNE in more ethnically diverse samples might counter…

Students' perceptions of cost are important predictors of academic and motivational outcomes. Though cost has been described as the anticipated effort one must put forth on an activity and what an individual sacrifices to complete a task, no known work has examined the extent to which anticipated cost beliefs predict experienced cost or whether…

Identifying meaningful cognitive and noncognitive predictors of mathematical competence is critical for developing targeted interventions for students struggling with mathematics. Here, 317 students' short-term verbal memory, verbal and visuospatial working memory, complexspatial abilities, intelligence, and mathematics attitudes and anxiety were…