The relationship between math anxiety and math performance: The moderating role of visuospatial working memory.

According to the processing efficiency theory (PET), math anxiety would interfere with working memory resources, negatively affecting mathematical abilities. To date, few studies have explored how the interaction between math anxiety and working memory would affect different types of math tasks, especially in primary school children. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to explore whether the interplay between math anxiety and working memory would influence performance in numerical operations (i.e., math fluency task) and mathematical reasoning (i.e., math reasoning task) in a group of primary school children (N = 202). Results showed that visuospatial working memory appeared to moderate the relationship between math anxiety and math performance when the math fluency task was considered, indicating that participants with higher levels of working memory were more negatively affected by math anxiety. No interaction effect was found for the math reasoning task in which students' scores were explained only by visuospatial working memory. The findings suggest that math anxiety and visuospatial working memory interact to influence performance in the math fluency task and that this effect may vary depending on the strategies used to complete the task. On the other hand, results on the math reasoning task showed that visuospatial working memory continues to have a positive effect on the math performance independently of math anxiety. The implications in the educational setting are discussed, pointing to the importance of monitoring and intervention studies on affective factors.

Distance learning environment: perspective of Italian primary and secondary teachers during COVID-19 pandemic.

School closures because of the COVID-19 emergency forced a rapid transition to distance learning worldwide. In this study, we investigated teachers' experiences with distance learning during the first Italian lockdown. A sample of 270 primary and secondary teachers answered a semi-structured questionnaire administered between April and May 2020. Didactic modalities, students' and teachers' difficulties with distance learning, and teachers' feelings during school closure were investigated through open-ended questions. Content analysis indicated that most teachers adopted both synchronous and asynchronous modalities, which resembled the traditional classroom learning environment. Moreover, technological weaknesses (lack of proper digital equipment and poor digital skills) and lack of interactions appeared to be the main threats to the quality of distance learning. The implementation of distance learning in primary schools emerged as more challenging than in secondary education. Furthermore, most teachers experienced negative feelings during online teaching. However, 13% of the sample reported a sense of resilience and opportunity. Particularly, older teachers reported more resilience compared with younger teachers, indicating the importance of experience in managing stressful teaching events. Overall, findings suggest that-in this novel educational environment-teachers' role has changed significantly, placing strong emphasis on the ability to encourage communication, discussion, and contact with students. Future work should focus on how information and communications technology could sustain meaningful interactions between students and teachers, especially in primary education.

The role of working memory updating, inhibition, fluid intelligence, and reading comprehension in explaining differences between consistent and inconsistent arithmetic word-problem-solving performance.

Children's performance in arithmetic word problems (AWPs) predicts their academic success and their future employment and earnings in adulthood. Understanding the nature and difficulties of interpreting and solving AWPs is important for theoretical, educational, and social reasons. We investigated the relation between primary school children's performance in different types of AWPs and their basic cognitive abilities (reading comprehension, fluid intelligence, inhibition, and updating processes). The study involved 182 fourth- and fifth-graders. Participants were administered an AWP-solving task and other tasks assessing fluid intelligence, reading comprehension, inhibition, and updating. The AWP-solving task included comparison problems incorporating either the adverb more than or the adverb less than, which demand consistent or inconsistent operations of addition or subtraction. The results showed that consistent problems were easier than inconsistent problems. Efficiency in solving inconsistent problems is related to inhibition and updating. Moreover, our results seem to indicate that the consistency effect is related to updating processes' efficiency. Path analyses showed that reading comprehension was the most important predictor of AWP-solving accuracy. Moreover, both executive functions-updating and inhibition-had a distinct and significant effect on AWP accuracy. Fluid intelligence had both direct and indirect effects, mediated by reading comprehension, on the overall measure of AWP performance. These domain-general factors are important factors in explaining children's performance in solving consistent and inconsistent AWPs.