Mathematics anxiety, academic grit, and learning engagement are central to children's mathematics learning, yet their longitudinal interplay remains insufficiently understood. This study examined dynamic associations among these constructs by following 3354 Chinese third- to fifth-grade students across three waves: December 2024, June 2025, and December 2025. To capture dimension-specific processes, six random-intercept cross-lagged panel models were estimated by crossing two dimensions of mathematics anxiety (learning and evaluation) with three dimensions of learning engagement (behavioral, cognitive, and emotional). Results indicated that within-person increases in mathematics learning and evaluation anxiety were prospectively associated with decreases in subsequent academic grit and learning engagement across dimensions. Within-person increases in behavioral, cognitive, and emotional engagement generally predicted lower subsequent mathematics anxiety and higher academic grit. Academic grit showed reciprocal associations with mathematics anxiety and indirectly linked mathematics anxiety to subsequent behavioral engagement; however, corresponding indirect effects involving cognitive and emotional engagement were less consistent. Educational relevance and implications statement This study followed Chinese upper elementary school children over one year to understand how mathematics anxiety, academic grit, and mathematics learning engagement develop together. The findings showed that when children experienced higher levels of mathematics anxiety, whether during learning or evaluation, they tended to show lower subsequent academic grit and lower behavioral, cognitive, and emotional engagement in mathematics. In turn, greater engagement was followed by greater academic grit and lower mathematics anxiety. Moreover, behavioral, cognitive and emotional learning engagement were indirectly associated with lower subsequent mathematics evaluation anxiety through academic grit. These findings suggest that, in mathematics education, encouraging children to “try harder” or exert greater behavioral effort in mathematics is valuable but may not be sufficient. Teachers should also carefully design instructional materials and learning activities that foster children's emotional and cognitive engagement in mathematics. Such efforts may support the development of academic grit and potentially contribute to reducing mathematics anxiety, particularly in evaluation situations.
Many students exhibit significant mathematics deficits by the end of elementary school, risking difficulties in secondary education. This study evaluated an adaptive e-learning program, used alone or with small-group tutoring, in a cluster-randomized field experiment using an analytic sample of 1044 fifth graders in 61 classes (from an initial sample of 1393 students), with three measurement occasions over one school year. Regarding procedural arithmetic knowledge, both intervention groups showed delayed effects on division, whereas a small multiplication effect emerged only for the single intervention; addition effects were marginal in both conditions, and subtraction effects were, at most, marginal for the single intervention alone. The combined intervention showed limited evidence of effects on conceptual knowledge, and neither intervention produced effects on motivational outcomes. The findings highlight both the potential and the limitations of these intervention formats for supporting at-risk students. Implications for scaling, given limited financial and human resources, are discussed. Educational relevance statement Many students arrive at secondary school with significant gaps in their mathematical skills, putting them at risk of falling further behind as academic demands increase. To address this challenge, we tested two intervention approaches in a large-scale experiment with over 1000 fifth graders: an adaptive e-learning program for practicing basic arithmetic and, for the lowest-achieving students, additional small-group tutoring delivered by trained student teachers. Both approaches showed small, selective effects on students' basic arithmetic skills—most consistently, a delayed improvement in division—whereas effects on students' conceptual knowledge and motivational outcomes were limited. Taken together, our findings highlight both the potential and the limitations of combining scalable digital tools with targeted, structured tutoring, pointing to the need for further research on how such approaches can be optimized for students at risk of falling behind in mathematics.
This study investigates how two competitive game modes affect performance in an educational mathematics game and how these effects interact with gender and mathematics anxiety. A total of 598 students from 30 classes across eight Irish primary schools participated in a between-subjects design, playing either against a computer-controlled opponent (vs. computer) or a classmate (vs. human). Move optimality did not differ significantly between conditions; however, students in the vs. human condition made fewer errors. Significant interactions emerged between game mode and gender for both performance measures, and between game mode and mathematics anxiety for move optimality. Boys showed higher optimality than girls in both conditions, with a larger gender difference in the vs. human condition. Gender differences in error ratio also varied by mode: boys had a significantly lower error ratio than girls in the vs. human condition, whereas no statistically significant gender difference was found in the vs. computer condition. Higher mathematics anxiety was associated with lower move optimality only in the vs. human condition. Differences between modes cannot be attributed to reduced enjoyment, as participants reported higher enjoyment of the vs. human version regardless of gender or mathematics anxiety.Educational relevance. Our study suggests that competitive gameplay against human opponents tends to benefit boys, who experience it as both more enjoyable and more effective than competition against AI-driven computer opponents. In contrast, girls and students with high levels of mathematics anxiety may require alternative intervention strategies to ensure equitable and effective learning outcomes. Students reported greater enjoyment on average when playing against a human opponent, suggesting that enjoyment alone does not necessarily translate into improved learning outcomes. These findings have important implications for educational game designers. Games should incorporate customizable gameplay options to enhance both effectiveness and inclusiveness: players could choose between competitive and non-competitive modes, different types of competition, or collaborative modes to accommodate diverse learner profiles and reduce potential anxiety-related barriers to learning.
This study examines the effects of being assigned to special needs assistance (SNA) and children's difficulty types (n = 35,024; 1809 received SNA) in early childhood education and care (ECEC) on children's language and academic skills in primary school. Using the Norwegian Mother, Father, and Child Cohort Study (MoBa) and data from the Medical Birth Registry of Norway (MBRN), we found: 1) the SNA assignment was negatively associated with all outcomes for children with comorbid language and developmental difficulties; 2) the effects were nonsignificant on reading and arithmetic skills for most children; 3) the SNA assignment positively predicted language skills for children with only one type of difficulty. These findings suggest that current ECEC support is insufficient for children with comorbid difficulty profiles, and that strengthening the quality of interventions may enhance the effectiveness of SNA.Educational relevance statementIn Norway, children in early childhood education and care who need extra help can be granted special needs assistance. Following around 35,000 children, we found that those granted this help at about age five tended to have better language skills later on if they had one kind of difficulty, but worse language, reading and arithmetic skills if they had both language and developmental difficulties. These associations cannot establish causality. Children granted this help are the ones already struggling most, so we cannot tell how they would have fared without it. However, the findings do show that one overall figure for all children receiving this help can be misleading, because some groups do better while others do worse, and that current provision may not be enough for children facing more than one kind of difficulty.
This special issue, “Individual Differences in Self-Regulated Learning Across the Lifespan,” published nine articles on research leveraging digital tools to investigate intersections of individual differences and self-regulated learning (SRL). My commentary begins with a brief and selective summary of each article in this collection. This forms a backdrop for analyses that follow. A first topic is considering how individual differences contribute to SRL. Key issues in this context are, first, problems arising when theorizing about SRL (and other constructs) when data describing individual differences are aggregate proxy variables; and, second, adopting a valid perspective about an individual difference as a moderator or mediator of SRL. Several challenges and benefits of using digital tools for research in this arena are noted, and proposals are explored for meeting challenges. A perspective on future research is offered.
