Skills underlying mathematics: Working memory capacity in mathematics and humanities students 2012-2015

Hubber, Paula and Cragg, Lucy and Gilmore, Camilla (2018). Skills underlying mathematics: Working memory capacity in mathematics and humanities students 2012-2015. [Data Collection]. Colchester, Essex: UK Data Service. 10.5255/UKDA-SN-853335

A high proportion of children and adults struggle with learning and doing maths. To help them we need to have a clear understanding of the processes involved in mathematics. There are lots of different skills involved in successful maths performance including maths specific knowledge such as knowledge of facts, procedures, and concepts as well as other more general skills. These include holding and manipulating information in mind (working memory), flexible thinking (shifting), and focusing on relevant information and ignoring distractions (inhibition). These skills are often termed 'executive function' skills and are thought to be particularly important for learning maths. To date, this basic understanding of the importance of executive function skills has not been exploited in the classroom because our understanding is not detailed enough. This project will explore the relationship between maths and executive function skills in greater depth using a variety of different research methods. This research will reveal the ways in which executive function skills are involved in learning and doing maths and help us to understand why some children find maths easy, and other children struggle.These findings will be used to raise teachers’ awareness of the importance of considering executive functions skills when teaching maths.

Data description (abstract)

This data collection contains data from three experiments with 156 undergraduate students of mathematics and humanities. The data collection includes standardised assessments of mathematics, the calculation subtest from the Woodcock-Johnson III Tests of Achievement, verbal and experimental measures of verbal and visuospatial working memory, and a self-report scale of mathematics anxiety for the whole sample, as well as standardised measures of spatial ability (Revised Vandenberg & Kuse Mental Rotations Test: MRT-A) and experimental measures of visuo-spatial short-term memory and endogenous spatial attention for sub-groups of the sample.
These data underpin the following paper: Hubber, P. J., Gilmore, C., & Cragg, L. (submitted). Mathematics students demonstrate superior visuo-spatial working memory to humanities students under conditions of low central executive processing load.

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