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Annals of the New York Academy of... Jul 2022Mathematics anxiety (MA) is negatively associated with mathematics performance. Although some aspects, such as mathematics self-concept (M self-concept), seem to...
Mathematics anxiety (MA) is negatively associated with mathematics performance. Although some aspects, such as mathematics self-concept (M self-concept), seem to modulate this association, the underlying mechanism is still unclear. In addition, the false gender stereotype that women are worse than men in mathematics can have a detrimental effect on women. The role that the endorsement of this stereotype (mathematics-gender stereotype (MGS) endorsement) can play may differ between men and women. In this study, we investigated how MA and mathematics self-concept relate to arithmetic performance when considering one's MGS endorsement and gender in a large sample (n = 923) of university students. Using a structural equation modeling approach, we found that MA and mathematics self-concept mediated the effect of MGS endorsement in both men and women. For women, MGS endorsement increased their MA level, while in men, it had the opposite effect (albeit weak). Specifically, in men, MGS endorsement influenced the level of the numerical components of MA, but, unlike women, it also positively influenced their mathematics self-concept. Moreover, men and women perceived the questions included in the considered instruments differently, implying that the scores obtained in these questionnaires may not be directly comparable between genders, which has even broader theoretical and methodological implications for MA research.
Topics: Anxiety; Anxiety Disorders; Female; Humans; Male; Mathematics; Self Concept; Stereotyping
PubMed: 35429357
DOI: 10.1111/nyas.14779 -
Journal of Biomedical Informatics Jun 2022Significant technological advances made in recent years have shepherded a dramatic increase in utilization of digital technologies for biomedicine- everything from the... (Review)
Review
Significant technological advances made in recent years have shepherded a dramatic increase in utilization of digital technologies for biomedicine- everything from the widespread use of electronic health records to improved medical imaging capabilities and the rising ubiquity of genomic sequencing contribute to a "digitization" of biomedical research and clinical care. With this shift toward computerized tools comes a dramatic increase in the amount of available data, and current tools for data analysis capable of extracting meaningful knowledge from this wealth of information have yet to catch up. This article seeks to provide an overview of emerging mathematical methods with the potential to improve the abilities of clinicians and researchers to analyze biomedical data, but may be hindered from doing so by a lack of conceptual accessibility and awareness in the life sciences research community. In particular, we focus on topological data analysis (TDA), a set of methods grounded in the mathematical field of algebraic topology that seeks to describe and harness features related to the "shape" of data. We aim to make such techniques more approachable to non-mathematicians by providing a conceptual discussion of their theoretical foundations followed by a survey of their published applications to scientific research. Finally, we discuss the limitations of these methods and suggest potential avenues for future work integrating mathematical tools into clinical care and biomedical informatics.
Topics: Data Analysis; Diagnostic Imaging
PubMed: 35508272
DOI: 10.1016/j.jbi.2022.104082 -
Cognition Aug 2022Mathematical proofs are both paradigms of certainty and some of the most explicitly-justified arguments that we have in the cultural record. Their very explicitness,...
Mathematical proofs are both paradigms of certainty and some of the most explicitly-justified arguments that we have in the cultural record. Their very explicitness, however, leads to a paradox, because the probability of error grows exponentially as the argument expands. When a mathematician encounters a proof, how does she come to believe it? Here we show that, under a cognitively-plausible belief formation mechanism combining deductive and abductive reasoning, belief in mathematical arguments can undergo what we call an epistemic phase transition: a dramatic and rapidly-propagating jump from uncertainty to near-complete confidence at reasonable levels of claim-to-claim error rates. To show this, we analyze an unusual dataset of forty-eight machine-aided proofs from the formalized reasoning system Coq, including major theorems ranging from ancient to 21st Century mathematics, along with five hand-constructed cases including Euclid, Apollonius, Hernstein's Topics in Algebra, and Andrew Wiles's proof of Fermat's Last Theorem. Our results bear both on recent work in the history and philosophy of mathematics on how we understand proofs, and on a question, basic to cognitive science, of how we justify complex beliefs.
Topics: Cognitive Science; Female; Humans; Mathematics; Philosophy; Problem Solving
PubMed: 35405458
DOI: 10.1016/j.cognition.2022.105120 -
Molecular Biology of the Cell Apr 2021In science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields, disabled people remain a significantly underrepresented part of the workforce. Recent data suggests...
In science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields, disabled people remain a significantly underrepresented part of the workforce. Recent data suggests that about 20% of undergraduates in the United States have disabilities, but representation in STEM fields is consistently lower than in the general population. Of those earning STEM degrees, only about 10% of undergraduates, 6% of graduate students, and 2% of doctoral students identify as disabled. This suggests that STEM fields have difficulty recruiting and retaining disabled students, which ultimately hurts the field, because disabled scientists bring unique problem-solving perspectives and input. This essay briefly explores the ways in which ableism-prejudice against disabled people based on the assumption that they are "less than" their nondisabled peers-in research contributes to the exclusion of disabled scientists and suggests ways in which the scientific community can improve accessibility and promote the inclusion of disabled scientists in academic science.
Topics: Engineering; Humans; Mathematics; Prejudice; Science; Students; Technology; United States
PubMed: 33793322
DOI: 10.1091/mbc.E20-09-0616 -
Cognitive Research: Principles and... Apr 2020Considering how spatial thinking connects to Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) outcomes, recent studies have evaluated how spatial interventions...
Considering how spatial thinking connects to Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) outcomes, recent studies have evaluated how spatial interventions impact elementary students' math learning. While promising, these interventions tend to overlook other factors affecting math learning; perceptions of math abilities, beliefs about math, and math anxiety can also impact math performance. Additionally, perceptions of spatial skill and spatial anxiety impact spatial performance. This study investigated how elementary teachers' perceptions of spatial thinking connects with math perceptions. Specifically, we focused on teachers' attitudes and beliefs around three topics: teaching and learning math, spatial abilities, and spatial thinking in mathematics. We found that lower spatial anxiety related to lower anxiety about teaching math, greater alignment between math beliefs and math standards, and greater efficacy in teaching and learning math. Further, a factor analysis showed one factor that connected stereotypical math thinking with both math and spatial anxiety, and another that connected spatial competencies, teaching and learning math, and spatial thinking within math. To further evaluate spatial thinking in math, we introduced a math categorization and verified it using teachers' ratings of teaching difficulty, visualization helpfulness, and spatial-thinking involvement. Structural equation models revealed that the level of spatial-thinking categorization was the best model of all three of the teachers' ratings. Overall, results showed numerous connections between teachers' attitudes and beliefs about mathematics and spatial thinking. Future intervention studies should consider teachers who are spatial and/or math-anxious, and future research should investigate the role of stereotypical thinking in spatial and math anxiety.
Topics: Adult; Aged; Attitude; Female; Humans; Male; Mathematical Concepts; Mathematics; Middle Aged; School Teachers; Space Perception; Spatial Navigation; Thinking; Young Adult
PubMed: 32300890
DOI: 10.1186/s41235-020-00221-w -
Journal of Experimental Child Psychology Feb 2022A robust association between young children's early mathematical proficiency and later academic achievement is well established. Less is known about the mechanisms...
A robust association between young children's early mathematical proficiency and later academic achievement is well established. Less is known about the mechanisms through which early mathematics skills may contribute to later mathematics and especially reading achievement. Using a parallel multiple mediator model, the current study investigated whether executive function (integration of working memory, inhibition, and cognitive flexibility) can explain the relations between early mathematics skills and elementary school mathematics and reading achievement. Data in this longitudinal study were collected from 243 children during the last year of early childhood education and care (kindergarten ages 5 and 6 years), 1 year later in first grade, and 5 years later when the children were in fifth grade. Background variables (maternal education, age, sex, and immigrant status), kindergarten baseline skills, and mediating effects of first-grade mathematics, phonological awareness, vocabulary, and possible omitted variables were controlled. Results showed that first-grade executive function mediated the effects of kindergarten mathematics on fifth-grade mathematics and on reading achievement. These findings suggest that executive function may work as a mechanism that may help to explain the frequently found strong association between children's early mathematics skills and later mathematics and reading achievement.
Topics: Achievement; Child; Child, Preschool; Executive Function; Humans; Longitudinal Studies; Mathematics; Reading
PubMed: 34655996
DOI: 10.1016/j.jecp.2021.105306 -
Advances in Wound Care Jun 2021For over 30 years, there has been sustained interest in the development of mathematical models for investigating the complex mechanisms underlying each stage of the... (Review)
Review
For over 30 years, there has been sustained interest in the development of mathematical models for investigating the complex mechanisms underlying each stage of the wound healing process. Despite the immense associated challenges, such models have helped usher in a paradigm shift in wound healing research. In this article, we review contributions in the field that span epidermal, dermal, and corneal wound healing, and treatments of nonhealing wounds. The recent influence of mathematical models on biological experiments is detailed, with a focus on wound healing assays and fibroblast-populated collagen lattices. We provide an overview of the field of mathematical modeling of wound healing, highlighting key advances made in recent decades, and discuss how such models have contributed to the development of improved treatment strategies and/or an enhanced understanding of the tightly regulated steps that comprise the healing process. We detail some of the open problems in the field that could be addressed through a combination of theoretical and/or experimental approaches. To move the field forward, we need to have a common language between scientists to facilitate cross-collaboration, which we hope this review can support by highlighting progress to date.
Topics: Animals; Humans; Mathematics; Models, Theoretical; Wound Healing
PubMed: 32634070
DOI: 10.1089/wound.2019.1132 -
BMC Psychology Feb 2021Maths anxiety is defined as a feeling of tension and apprehension that interferes with maths performance ability, the manipulation of numbers and the solving of... (Review)
Review
BACKGROUND
Maths anxiety is defined as a feeling of tension and apprehension that interferes with maths performance ability, the manipulation of numbers and the solving of mathematical problems in a wide variety of ordinary life and academic situations. Our aim was to identify the facilitators and barriers of maths anxiety in university students.
METHOD
A scoping review methodology was used in this study. A search of databases including: Cumulative Index of Nursing and Allied Health Literature, Embase, Scopus, PsycInfo, Medline, Education Resources Information Centre, Google Scholar and grey literature. Articles were included if they addressed the maths anxiety concept, identified barriers and facilitators of maths anxiety, had a study population comprised of university students and were in Arabic or English languages.
RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
After duplicate removal and applying the inclusion criteria, 10 articles were included in this study. Maths anxiety is an issue that effects many disciplines across multiple countries and sectors. The following themes emerged from the included papers: gender, self-awareness, numerical ability, and learning difficulty. The pattern in which gender impacts maths anxiety differs across countries and disciplines. There was a significant positive relationship between students' maths self-efficacy and maths performance and between maths self-efficacy, drug calculation self-efficacy and drug calculation performance.
CONCLUSION
Maths anxiety is an issue that effects many disciplines across multiple countries and sectors. Developing anxiety toward maths might be affected by gender; females are more prone to maths anxiety than males. Maths confidence, maths values and self-efficacy are related to self-awareness. Improving these concepts could end up with overcoming maths anxiety and improving performance.
Topics: Anxiety; Anxiety Disorders; Female; Humans; Male; Mathematics; Students; Universities
PubMed: 33632322
DOI: 10.1186/s40359-021-00537-2 -
CBE Life Sciences Education Sep 2020Cognitive neuroscience research is typically conducted in controlled laboratory environments that hold very little resemblance to science, technology, engineering, and...
Cognitive neuroscience research is typically conducted in controlled laboratory environments that hold very little resemblance to science, technology, engineering, and mathematics classrooms. Fortunately, recent advances in portable electroencephalography technology now allow researchers to collect brain data from groups of students in real-world classrooms. Even though this line of research is still new, there is growing evidence that students' engagement, memory retention, and social dynamics are reflected in the brain-to-brain synchrony between students and teachers (i.e., the similarity in their brain responses). In this , I will provide an overview of this emerging line of research, discuss how this approach can facilitate new collaborations between neuroscientists and discipline-based education researchers, and propose directions for future research.
Topics: Brain; Engineering; Humans; Interpersonal Relations; Mathematics; Science; Students; Technology; Universities
PubMed: 32870083
DOI: 10.1187/cbe.19-11-0258 -
Neuropsychology Review Jun 2024Mathematics incorporates a broad range of skills, which includes basic early numeracy skills, such as subitizing and basic counting to more advanced secondary skills... (Meta-Analysis)
Meta-Analysis Review
Mathematics incorporates a broad range of skills, which includes basic early numeracy skills, such as subitizing and basic counting to more advanced secondary skills including mathematics calculation and reasoning. The aim of this review was to undertake a detailed investigation of the severity and pattern of early numeracy and secondary mathematics skills in people with epilepsy. Searches were guided by the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) statement. Twenty adult studies and 67 child studies were included in this review. Overall, meta-analyses revealed significant moderate impairments across all mathematics outcomes in both adults (g= -0.676), and children (g= -0.593) with epilepsy. Deficits were also observed for specific mathematics outcomes. For adults, impairments were found for mathematics reasoning (g= -0.736). However, two studies found that mathematics calculation was not significantly impaired, and an insufficient number of studies examined early numeracy skills in adults. In children with epilepsy, significant impairments were observed for each mathematics outcome: early numeracy (g= -0.383), calculation (g= -0.762), and reasoning (g= -0.572). The gravity of impairments also differed according to the site of seizure focus for children and adults, suggesting that mathematics outcomes were differentially vulnerable to the location of seizure focus.
Topics: Humans; Epilepsy; Mathematics; Child; Adult
PubMed: 37490196
DOI: 10.1007/s11065-023-09600-8