(Eye) Tracking individual differences in numeracy development. Interplay between skills, motivation and well-being.

A total of 265 children (mean age at first grade: 6 y 9 m; boys n = 120), with their teachers and parents, participated the project. During the four years of the project, we measured children's performance in numeracy, reading, language, executive functions, as well as mathematics motivation and emotions. Around 100 children have also taken eye-tracking tasks. Covid-19 affected our data collections so that the third data collection in spring 2020 was cancelled. In total, we managed to collect data from four time points. We have published the results from the project in international scientific journals, and are still working on some papers. Thirteen Master's theses have been completed in connection to the project. We have presented our research findings in several international conferences. All publications and presentations are listed on the project's website: https://www.iseenumbers123.com. The web site also provides information and a video about the project, blog texts about the progress, and knowledge about the development of early math skills, math difficulties, motivation and emotions for parents and teachers in Norwegian, English and Finnish.

The project has produced novel and important knowledge about the development of numeracy skills in early school years, and its interplay with motivation, emotions, and well-being, and other cognitive skills. Despite the Covid-19 pandemic, we were able to follow children's development from first to third grade, in total of four time points. In addition, we used eye-tracking technology to reveal cognitive processes during math activities, which could not have been collected using traditional behavioral measures. The project has so far published five scientific articles in international journal, four papers are under review or revision, and several manuscripts are still in process. In addition, we have targeted some publications for educational professionals, and also wrote a final project report, with some recommendations for practice based on our research results. Further, project's results have been presented in several international conferences. The results from our project can be applied in mathematics teaching in early grades. We found some numeracy (e.g., number sense and counting skills) and cognitive skills (e.g., working memory and rapid automatized naming), which were linked with, or predicted later math performance and learning difficulties, and are thus important to consider in this age group. Overall, children were motivated and enjoyed mathematics learning in early grades, and little boredom and anxiety was revealed in our studies, even if boredom started to increase and enjoyment to decrease during the three first school years. The latter finding calls for investigating methods, which would keep children interested in mathematics learning, and providing them challenging enough activities, although taking into consideration children's individual differences in math performance. We have disseminated the theoretical background and the findings from the studies for teachers and parents, as well for students studying (special) education, through our project website.

It was recently demonstrated that 22.3% of Norwegian adolescents do not have the numeracy skills needed to take full advantage of employment opportunities and to handle critical daily life activities (OECD, 2016). Currently, there is little knowledge about the interplay of factors that contribute to numeracy development, especially in the early years of schooling, the time when the building blocks for the later numeracy competence are formed. This research focuses on tracing individual differences in children's numeracy development from Grade 1 to Grade 3 (N = 300). The focus is on the developmental interplay between skills (numeracy, language and executive functions), motivation (interest and competence perceptions) and well-being (school value and math anxiety). It is assumed that distinct subgroups of children with different profiles regarding their skills, motivation and well-being can be identified in the first grade. Of interest is also the stability and change in these profiles over time, from Grade 1 to Grade 3. Furthermore, it is expected that different developmental trajectories in numeracy (e.g., children with rapid, slow or untypical development) are found, and early markers that best predict these developmental trajectories, and further protect for unfavourable numeracy development, can be identified. Novel technological and methodological approaches are used. Children's numeracy development is investigated in depth using eye tracking technology in certain numeracy tasks, physiological responses (heart rate and skin conductance) are measured during numeracy tasks in relation to math anxiety, and person-centred methods and latent growth analyses are applied in statistical analyses. As an implication for education, the findings can form the basis for development of interventions (e.g., educational games) relevant for children's numeracy development, especially concerning those children at risk for unfavourable numeracy developmental path.