Arithmos investigates how digital game-based learning can reduce the negative effects of math anxiety on Primary School pupils. The project will design and implement novel adaptive and anxiety-aware educational games and evaluate them during two cycles of in-school randomized control trials. Arithmos includes activities to support our technology-based intervention, including workshops for teachers to facilitate their adoption of game-based learning and multimedia information material for children and parents. This two-year project is funded by the Irish Research Council (IRC) and will be directed by Dr. Pierpaolo Dondio at Technological University Dublin and Dr. Flavia H. Santos at University College Dublin.

Since socio-environmental factors may be associated with math anxiety, the project will focus on addressing and prioritizing the educational needs of children and young people from social and economic disadvantaged communities. The program includes rural and urban primary education schools allocated areas of highest concentration of disadvantage, incorporating different initiatives, such as tackling problems of literacy and numeracy, reduced number of students per class, and improved parental involvement.

We named our project ARITHMÓS, a Greek word for number, numeral or digit. To Pitágoras, considered the first mathematician, is credited with the idea that “numbers govern the universe”, quotes by Prof. Desmond MacHale in his 1993 book Comic Sections. ARITHMÓS is an interdisciplinary project that will address a global societal challenge which is to provide education of quality and tailored to specific needs, such as the case of children with math anxiety. This project will address a form of anxiety that has reduced opportunities for pleasant and long-lasting learning experiences in mathematics. The ARITHMÓS Project will have an impact on UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs 1, 3, 4, 5 and 10) because it will deliver a world-class education approach for Mathematics-anxious students by directly supporting the children through especially designed digital computer games, guiding parents, and offering training to the teachers towards math anxiety management.