The 0Maths blog

The Research that makes 0maths different

A 2022 UCL study found that only 1 of the top 25 maths apps on the Apple store and Play stores was effective. At 0maths, we began with the goal of making the most effective maths platform possible. We've used findings from Educational Psychology as the basis for every aspect of its design:

Gamification

Gamification in maths platforms is often interpreted as a narrative (slay the dragon / race your friend / dog with your numeracy skills).

Outside of maths platforms, gamification is much broader and more sophisticated. It is intrinsic to everything from banking apps to the dark design of gambling apps and social media. It simply means utilizing design that taps into the brain's reward pathways. This is the approach we've adopted.

Gamification on 0maths is not:

• An interactively animated background (ie your avatar's progress is related to your maths progress). Unsurprisingly, parallel tasks and animated backgrounds are proven to be distracting.
• We don't offer peer-to peer competition either. Aside from reducing inclusivity and cooperation in the classroom, peer to peer maths competition seems to benefit only the top students, largely at the expense of the bottom half of the class, where it exacerbates maths anxiety, reduces attention levels, and negatively impacts progress:
  
  1. From duels to classroom competition: Social competition and learning in educational videogames within different group sizes [Nebel, Schneider, Rey, 2016]
  2. The Effects of Peer Competition-Induced Anxiety on Massive Open Online Course Learning [Liu, 2024]
• For so many maths apps, working very quickly against a computer or against an opponent seems to be the definition of success. This can be detrimental to learners relationship with maths in several ways:
  1. Increased maths anxiety - which can easily snowball, causing increasing disengagement [Geist, 2010].
  2. Reduced accuracy [Roeper 2007].
  3. Negative messaging: children learn that reflexive answers are 'better' than answers which have been thought about.
  4. Time pressure reinforces familiar strategies rather than trying something unfamiliar and more appropriate. [Suárez-Pellicioni, Núñez-Peña & Colomé, 2015 ]
  5. Mistakes can't be learned from.
  6. Rewarding performance rather than learning reinforces a performance mindset, as opposed to a growth mindset:
     How growth mindset influences mathematics achievements: A study of Chinese middle school students [Dong, Jia, Fey 2023]
  7. Effects of Math Anxiety and Perfectionism on Timed versus Untimed Math Testing in Mathematically Gifted Sixth Graders [Roeper 2007]

• So how does 0maths gamify maths?

  
  There are rewards for each question and each step of a question; these rewards are designed to not disrupt the flow. Learners achieve the satisfaction of completing question types and topics, ascending difficulty levels and winning awards for progress. It is apparent to them that they are making progress. A clear maths problem at the right level brings the same type of satisfaction - and dopamine release - as solving a puzzle.
• We do use timings as a success indicator on 0maths, but we do so very carefully.
  1. Learners acheiving correct answers win a silver award, or a gold award if they did it within the time target. A silver award is not failure. Taking a long time is not a catastrophe - it shows students that they are making good progress.
  2. Bridging topics (e.g. the 30 or so different learn-a-table activities) have generous time limits so all students can win a majority of gold awards.
  3. Once the foundations are solid and the facts are comitted to memory, timed activities are there for practice.

Question format

• Multiple choice is the most common format in primary maths platforms. It is one tool in the box. We use it only where it's the right tool.
• Our never wrong, but perhaps not-yet-right answers have the backing of several studies:
1. We learn by getting things right, not by getting them wrong. [Eskreis-Winkler and Ayelet Fishbach, 2020]
2. No post-error slowing (PES). [Naaman & Goldfarb, 2021]]
3. Low-confidence answers are reinforced.[Fabio, Huessler, Johnson & Marsh 2010]
4. Errors increase cognitive load.[Suárez-Pellicioni, Núñez-Peña & Colomé, 2015 ]. Taking errors off the table reduces cognitive load.
5. Reduce anxiety levels and free-up working memory.[Dowker, Sarkar & Looi, 2016]

On many maths platforms, adrenaline provides the addictive element by racing against peers or some sort of ticking bomb.

• However, adrenaline levels are already elevated in maths: Mental arithmetic performance, physiological reactivity and mathematics anxiety amongst U.K. primary school children [Hunt1, Bhardwa1 & Sheffield 2017]
• Adrenaline hampers recall and updating of memories. It also switches the brain to a reflexive 'habit mode' rather than a thinking 'cognitive mode'.
  Learning and memory under stress: implications for the classroom [Vogel & Schwabe 2016]
  Adrenaline can aid memory formation, but not necessarily the memory you want. (e.g. "in maths tocay I learned that I can't do 7 times 8 and I don't like maths"). FWIW, adrenaline can be more useful in other subjects - you can make history memorable if you can tell an exciting story.
• The long term effects of constant chronic stress (ie adrenaline) are overwhelmingly negative, such as reduced concentration ability, reduced cognitive function and reduced memory. Not everything should be exciting.

By eschewing time based failure, peer-to peer competition, and even wrong answers, we decrease adrenaline levels (which are in any case elevated for many students when doing maths). Instead, because answers on 0maths are never wrong, the constant stream of correct answers triggers dopamine* release.

• Dopamine provides both a learning signal and a motivation signal. [Wiluhn 2017]
• Dopamine helps with maths rules as well as mood. [Torben Ott, Simon Jacob and Professor Andreas Nieder 2014]
• Dopamine aids memory:
  Dopamine: a potential substrate for synaptic plasticity and memory mechanisms

* dopamine levels can also be increased through exposure to sunlight, getting sufficient sleep, healthy diet (especially protein: turkey, eggs, beef, legumes, and dairy) and exercise. That's out of our remit but it would be remiss to not mention the broader picture.

The colour scheme

• Although children prefer bright colours, they find them distracting, so the look of 0maths is low key. Compared to other primary school websites 0Maths may look a little more 'adult' - unsurprisingly adults also find bright colours distracting. Source:
  Disruptive Effects of Colorful vs. Non-colorful Play Area on Structured Play
  Where we use bright colours they are at the focal point of the question.
• Being in green spaces (ie on grass or in woodland) has been shown to be calming and is especially beneficial to children suffering with ADD and ADHD. There's no evidence that a green screen can produce the same effect. However, green is culturally perceived a calming colour and that's the message we want to convey - ie 0maths is a place of reduced anxiety.
• It is possible to mute the colours further for ADD / ADHD students (in the settings).

Typing versus handwriting

If appropriately equipped (ie using an ipad and an apple pen) it is possible to use 0maths with handwritten, as opposed to typed, answers so we can happily sit on the fence for this issue. It makes for an interesting discussion though.

Several well publicisized studies (i.e. Handwriting but not typewriting leads to widespread brain connectivity: a high-density EEG study with implications for the classroom, Van der Weel, Van der Meer, 2023) have demonstrated increased and more interconnected brain activity when writing by hand as opposed to typing. This in itself is not especially surprising; handwriting requires more muscles, moving more intricately, in a more coordinated manner than typing. It would be surprising if handwriting did not induce more brain activity.

However, such studies have largely been interpreted to mean writing things by hand leads to better retention, but it's important to note that they did not test for this. Their own wording, not directly supported by their research, is qualified ("Thus, the ongoing substitution of handwriting by typewriting in almost every educational setting may seem somewhat misguided as it could affect the learning process in a negative way"). I'll say it again: they did not test for this conclusion and provided no direct evidence for it.

An alternative interpretation of the same study (not presented by its authors) is that cognitive load increases more with handwriting than with typing. This is directly supported by the conclusion of another study that handwriting deteriorates with cognitive load - ie handwriting utilises cognitive capacity. (A legibility scale for early primary handwriting: Authentic task and cognitive load influences [Staats, Oakley and Marais, 2019] ). As a large part of the task of teaching maths is to reduce cognitive load as much as possible, this would seem to imply that typing would be better than handwriting.

Straying from maths, there are several studies looking at college performance when typing notes versus handwriting and they all seem to have different conclusions - here's a good discussion on the subject. The study alluded to in the above article looked at student exam results and how they took notes (ie typed or by hand). This got much more emphatic results (in favour of handwriting) than previous studies. However, the key difference is likely to be the students' ability to add diagrams and mind maps into their notes rather than the mechanism for forming words.

The optimial solution may not be the same for all students.