Spring 2020 was exceptional for all of us. We were on the third day of our data collection in March, when everything needed to be stopped – both the schools and the university were closed due to the COVID-19. First, we cancelled all data collection until Easter, and were hoping for to continue with the plan B after the Easter, but soon it became evident, that data collection was not going to happen at all this spring. This was of course a big disappointment for all of us, but we were not alone. Many researchers around the globe were in the same situation. Even though, we will be now missing one time point in our longitudinal study, we are lucky to have multiple time points still included, to truly follow up children’s numeracy development. Fingers crossed that we can do the planned data collections during the next school year – those will be the two final data collection times in the project, and the children will be then already in grade 3!
As data collection didn’t happen this spring, we had more time to focus on the data already gathered from the first and second grade. The first manuscripts have been written, and many are currently in progress. It is always exciting to work with new data, to find answers for the set research questions, and then finally, to bring some new knowledge to the research field. We aim for publishing everything as open access, so that both researchers and educational professionals can have access to our published articles. There has also been a group of students doing their master thesis in special needs education connected to the project. It has been a pleasure to notice how the students have developed in their skills in doing a research study during the spring! The results from our project were also planned to be presented in one international conference in Dublin this summer, but due to the COVID-19, that conference was cancelled. The accepted abstracts, however, can be read from here. The next conference, where we will present some new research findings, will be held in Reykjavik in November (if the COVID-19 situation allows for this). This NORSMA conference gathers researchers from the Nordic countries, from the fields of mathematics education and learning difficulties.
An exceptional spring it was for the project, but now we are looking forward to continuing with the planned activities in the coming two years still to come.
On behalf of the iSeeNumbers team, I would like to sincerely thank all the children, teachers and parents involved in the project this year, and wish you all a very sunny summer!
-Riikka
