End of the project

iSeeNumbers is in its end. A lot has happened during the project years, from data collection during the Covid-19 pandemic to publications of new findings. Here some milestones from the journey.

Data collection as an adventure day

Collecting data

We had a new idea for collecting data - let's organise an adventure day for the students, and assess a variety of their math and cognitive skills, as well as motivation and emotions, during one school day. Planning and organising the data collection days took a lot of time, but those were a success - with help from research assistants - for the first two time points. Then the pandemic hit. The third data collection needed to be cancelled due to lockdown. The future of getting enough data for a longitudinal study was at risk. Luckily, we were able to conduct the following two data collections, but with a limited set of measures and at schools. There were many Covid restrictions still needed to be taken care of. The final time point was the most challenging one for us. We had already planned everything ready to go, when we got a message that no visitors were allowed to schools. We had no other choice than to try collecting data online. All testing materials were delivered to schools and research assistants instructed the students in their classrooms via Teams. It worked out surprisingly well! With many ups and downs, we managed to collect data from four time points, from first to third grade. These were happy news for our longitudinal design!

Collaboration - face-to-face and online

I was happy to get an excellent team - both national and international collaborators - to work with in the iSeeNumbers project! Before the pandemic, we had face-to-face seminars, in which we planned the papers to be written, analysed data, planned the next steps in the project, and most of all, had really nice discussions related to the project's topics. During the pandemic, these meetings took place only online. Luckily, we were used to working online, so preparing and writing manuscripts happened using online platforms, such as Google Drive.

A seminar at the professorboligen in Oslo.

Presentations and publications

During the years, we have presented our project findings in international scientific conferences. During the pandemic, some of these took place only online. The presentations have often been a kick-off for the corresponding manuscript work, and later on for published articles. In addition to presenting the results from the project, the conferences have been nice avenues for networking and hearing about the latest research around the globe.

Several articles from the project have already been published. Most of these are available as open access.

• Rawlings, A. M., Niemivirta, M., Korhonen, J., Lindskog, M., Tuominen, H., & Mononen, R. (2022). Achievement emotions and arithmetic fluency – Development and parallel processes during the early school years. Preprint available at PsyArXiv: https://doi.org/10.31234/osf.io/ufr32

• Mononen, R. & Rawlings, A. (2022). Matematiikka ja tunteet [Math and emotions]. M. Orell, H. Ketovuori, & T-M. Kaarlela (toim.) Helposti! Tukea, pelejä ja opetusvinkkejä matematiikkaan. FinRa.

• Throndsen, T. U., Lindskog, M., Niemivirta, M., & Mononen, R. (2022). Does mathematics anxiety moderate the effect of problem difficulty on cognitive effort? Scandinavian Journal of Psychology, 63(6), 565–714. https://doi.org/10.1111/sjop.12852

• Mononen, R., & Niemivirta, M. (2022). Patterns of symbolic numerical magnitude processing and working memory as predictors of early mathematics performance. European Journal of Psychology of Education. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10212-021-00596-4

• Mononen, R., Niemivirta, M., & Korhonen, J. (2022). Predicting mathematical learning difficulties status: The role of domain-specific and domain-general skills. International Electronic Journal of Elementary Education, 4(3), 335–352. Retrieved from https://www.iejee.com/index.php/IEJEE/article/view/1731

• Mononen, R., Niemivirta, M., Korhonen, J., Lindskog, M., & Tapola, A. (2021). Developmental relations between mathematics anxiety, symbolic numerical magnitude processing, and arithmetic skills from first to second grade. Cognition and Emotion. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1080/02699931.2021.2015296

• Tuominen, H., Niemivirta, M., Korhonen, J., Tapola, A., & Mononen, R. (2021). Matemaattisten taitojen ja motivaation profiilit ensimmäisen luokan oppilailla. Psykologia, 56(6), 548–566.

• Mononen, R (2019). Matemaattiset oppimisvaikeudet - selittäviä tekijöitä. Kielikukko, 3, 2–7. (PDF)

Some manuscripts are still in process and the work with these will continue next year.

Students as research assistants and their Master's theses

It was a pleasure to have so many students involved in the project during these years. Many started as research assistants in data collections and got to know how research is conducted. Many also ended up in writing their Master's thesis related to the project. A total of 13 Master's theses were written from the project data - in Norwegian, English and Finnish.

New year, new adventures

iSeeNumbers is now in its end. Still some final reporting to be done and working with the manuscripts still continues with collaborators next year.

I would like to thank all of you who have taken part in the project - the students, their parents, teachers, research assistants, and all the collaborators! Thank you also for the funders of this project: The Research Council of Norway and the Department of Special Education at the University of Oslo.

– Riikka