Cognitive and emotional factors in mathematics development

Cognitive and emotional factors in mathematics development

Professor Denes Szucs
University of Cambridge, Department of Psychology

April 20, 2026 (Monday)
12:45 - 14:00
Room 754, Meng Wah Complex, HKU
Chair:  Professor Xiao Zhang

Abstract:
On the one hand I will review various projects that examined potentially foundational variables supporting cognitive mathematical development and underlying mathematical learning difficulties (MLD). On the other hand, I will consider large projects that examined an emotional block of mathematical development, mathematics anxiety (MA). We could not support the number sense theory of mathematical development or MLD (Grade 2, 4 and 6 children; n≈1250). We found that visual and verbal working memory were good correlates of standardized maths performance while number sense related variables were negligible predictors of maths. We further found that MLD and MA strongly dissociated (n≈1700). MA was not a consequence of being weak in maths. In fact, about 80% of students with high MA were normal to high maths achievers. Females also reported notably higher levels of MA than males. In an analysis of OECD data from more than 150,000 adolescents we have shown that MA was much less related to actual mathematics performance than to subjective perceptions of success expectancy in mathematics, perceived control over maths activities and the subjective value of mathematics. These self-perceptions have only modest relationships to actual mathematics performance. Hence, understanding and managing students’ subjective self-perceptions may be key to preventing and alleviating mathematics anxiety, a negative emotional reaction with potentially life-long consequences. Findings suggest that cognitive and emotional blocks of mathematical development need different interventions.

About the speaker:
Denes Szucs is Professor of Cognitive Neuroscience and Psychology at the University of Cambridge, United Kingdom. He is deputy director of the Centre for Neuroscience in Education at the Department of Psychology at Cambridge and is an official fellow of Darwin College, Cambridge. Szucs is Senior Fellow in the Science of Learning at UNESCO, United Nations, he has held various research grants from UK, European and USA funders. Szucs was the recipient of the James S McDonnell Foundation Scholar Award and was elected as Fellow of the Association for Psychological Science (USA) and Academia Europaea (UK/EU). His research concerns mathematics development, mathematics anxiety, cognitive electro-physiology, the replicability of biomedical science and the misuse of statistics in biomedical science.

~ All are welcome ~