Sarah Elizabeth McCarthy

In England, 8.1 million adults only achieve primary school level maths (Skills for Life, 2011, p. 69). Furthermore, low numeracy skills result in poorer outcomes in adulthood compared to those without low numeracy skills, including lower engagement in their communities and lower potential for employment. Additionally, efforts to increase these skills later in life are of limited success (Windisch, 2015). Optimising mathematics education in early life is therefore vital to improve life outcomes. However, national attainment in mathematics for children aged 11 (KS2 SATS) is still considerably below pre-Covid levels (DfE, 2023) and the attainment gap in mathematics between children from low socioeconomic (SES) backgrounds and their peers has increased compared to 2019 levels (National Audit Office, 2023). In addition, research suggests that children from low SES backgrounds are less likely to be well supported at home in the development of their mathematics skills (DeFlorio & Beliakoff 2015). Spatial cognition – the ability to understand the properties of objects (location, size, and shape) as well as the relationship between objects – improves children’s mathematics understanding (Hawes et al., 2022), is malleable (Uttal et al., 2013), and offers a fun and enjoyable way for children to engage in mathematics education (McDougal et al., 2023). There is limited research dedicated to understanding the relationship between spatial ability and mathematics understanding in children from low SES backgrounds. 

This project seeks to understand the dynamic of spatial ability and mathematics performance and how this is related to socioeconomic status. This information will be used to develop an effective set of interventions that can be deployed in education settings and within the home environment. The research has three main studies: (1) an associational study examining the relationship between spatial reasoning skills age 2, 4 and 9 and mathematics performance aged 10 and how this relationship is moderated by SES. (2) an intervention study co-produced by practitioners and researchers to address low levels of mathematics understanding, aimed at children from low SES backgrounds, using spatial reasoning activities. (3) a qualitative study working with families of children from low SES backgrounds to understand the barriers to supporting children’s spatial ability and mathematics performance outside of school.