From January 2014, Psychological Science introduced new submission guidelines that encouraged the use of effect sizes, estimation, and meta-analysis (the “new statistics”), required extra detail of methods, and offered badges for use of open science practices. We investigated the use of these practices in empirical articles published by Psychological Science and, for comparison, by the Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, during the period of January 2013 to December 2015. The use of null hypothesis significance testing (NHST) was extremely high at all times and in both journals. In Psychological Science, the use of confidence intervals increased markedly overall, from 28% of articles in 2013 to 70% in 2015, as did the availability of open data (3 to 39%) and open materials (7 to 31%). The other journal showed smaller or much smaller changes. Our findings suggest that journal-specific submission guidelines may encourage desirable changes in authors’ practices.

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The relationship between anxiety and mathematics has often been investigated in the literature. Different forms of anxiety have been evaluated, with math anxiety (MA) and test anxiety (TA) consistently being associated with various aspects of mathematics. In this meta-analysis, we have evaluated the impact of these forms of anxiety, distinguishing between different types of mathematical tasks. In investigating this relationship, we have also included potential moderators, such as age, gender, working memory, type of task, and type of material. One hundred seventy-seven studies met the inclusion criteria, providing an overall sample of 906,311 participants. Results showed that both MA and TA had a significant impact on mathematics. Sociodemographic factors had modest moderating effects. Working memory (WM) also mediated the relationship between MA and TA with mathematics; however, this indirect effect was weak. Theoretical and educational implications, as well as future directions for research in this field, are discussed.

The underlying structure of visuospatial working memory in children with mathematical learning disability.http://researchonline.ljmu.ac.uk/7073/ Article LJMU has developed LJMU Research Online for users to access the research output of the University more effectively. Copyright © and Moral Rights for the papers on this site are retained by the individual authors and/or other copyright owners. Users may download and/or print one copy of any article(s) in LJMU Research Online to facilitate their private study or for non-commercial research. You may not engage in further distribution of the material or use it for any profit-making activities or any commercial gain.The version presented here may differ from the published version or from the version of the record. Please see the repository URL above for details on accessing the published version and note that access may require a subscription. AbstractThe present study examines visual, spatial-sequential, and spatial-simultaneous working memory (WM) performance in children with mathematical learning disability (MLD) and low mathematics achievement (LMA) compared with typically developing (TD) children. Groups were matched on reading decoding performance and verbal intelligence. Besides statistical significance testing, we used bootstrap confidence interval estimation and computed effect sizes. Children were individually tested with six computerized tasks, two for each visuospatial WM subcomponent. We found that both MLD and LMA children had low visuospatial WM function in both simultaneous and sequential spatial WM tasks. The WM deficit was most expressed in MLD children and less in LMA children. This suggests that WM scores are distributed along a continuum with TD children achieving top scores and MLD children achieving low scores. The theoretical and practical significance of findings are discussed.

The consideration of intelligence has always been crucial for the diagnosis of specific learning disorders (SLDs). In particular, the hypothesis of a discrepancy between normal to high general intellectual abilities and poor academic achievement has traditionally been stressed (Mercer, Jordan, Allsopp, & Mercer, 1996). However, the traditional view of SLD has been criticized (e.g., Siegel, 1988). First of all, the dimensional distribution of academic and intellectual performances (i.e., a continuum of severity with no break points) has been emphasized, raising doubts on the use of specific cut points (Francis et al., 2005; see also Branum-Martin, Fletcher, & Stuebing, 2013). Another criticism concerns the fact that the discrepancy hypothesis treats intelligence as a unitary construct, contrasting a single, overall measure of intelligence (e.g., the full-scale intelligence quotient [FSIQ]) with achievement measures. However, many formulations of the construct of intelligence suggest that it can be better accounted for by considering different aspects (Carroll, 1993). Particularly in the case of children with SLD, using a battery of intelligence tests can help to detect strengths and weaknesses that could not emerge when a unitary IQ is considered (Giofrè & Cornoldi, 2015). In this respect, the different factor scores obtained using the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children-IV (WISC-IV; Wechsler, 2003)-that is, the most widely used tool for assessing children intelligence in the Western countries (Evers et al., 2012)-can be useful. Recent research has shown that the intellectual profile of children with SLD differs from that of typically developing (TD) children. In particular, it has been shown that