Supporting children’s inhibitory control in mathematics learning: A participatory research study in classroom contexts

Although the link between inhibitory control and mathematical achievement is well-established, there is limited evidence supporting the effectiveness of interventions designed to strengthen inhibitory control in educational settings. Here, we adopted a participatory research approach, which accounts for the context within which learning takes place, to investigate how teachers can adapt classroom practices to engage children’s inhibitory control during mathematical activities. The research team comprised three groups: academic researchers, mathematics education advisors, and classroom teachers, who acted as co-inquirers. As part of a professional development activity, we co-developed classroom strategies targeting inhibitory control. Teachers then used and adapted these strategies to their context. Using a combination of quantitative and qualitative data, we assessed changes in teachers’ ( N = 12) teaching and learning strategies and their pupils’ ( N = 286) mathematical performance and thinking. Overall, our findings show that teachers effectively embedded inhibitory control strategies into their practice. For a subset of the children’s assessment questions, we saw an increase in the use of inhibitory control across timepoints. Moreover, there was an increase in children’s references to inhibitory control strategies in their metacognitive thinking. Overall, our findings suggest that there was a meaningful change in classroom discourse. Our findings contribute to the growing body of evidence highlighting the value of participatory research for translating insights from cognitive science into the classroom. While such participatory approaches are inherently shaped by the educational and research context, they offer important, complementary insights alongside standard randomized controlled trials. We suggest that evidence-based education requires a multiplicity of research approaches that together can provide insight into the potential of cognitive science to influence education practice.