Dr Joanne Eaves

I have had an atypical career path with relatively late entry into academia. I completed my first degree at the University of York (Psychology, 2009). I then completed an MSc (Occupational Psychology) at Birkbeck, University of London (2016) while working as an Intelligence Analyst. I missed academia and returned to it in 2016 to start a PhD on a topic that fascinated me during my undergraduate studies, numerical cognition. I completed my PhD at the Mathematics Education Centre (Loughborough) in 2020, and then secured a 3 year postdoctoral position at the University of Nottingham (2020 – 2024), where I investigated the role of inhibitory control in multiplication retrieval and learning. In 2024 I was awarded a Vice Chancellor Independent Research Fellowship at Loughborough to undertake my own research programme. I have had two periods of maternity leave (PhD and postdoc), just to add extra deviation to an atypical journey!

I am interested in how individuals learn and develop an understanding of different mathematical concepts and processes, and the factors that enable them to do so. More specifically, I am interested in how children’s understanding develops when they transition from arithmetic (primary school) to algebra (secondary school), and how the skills that they might possess in primary school could help or hinder their transition.

I am currently investigating:

• The strategies that children in late primary school use to solve arithmetic problems, and how teaching practices across different countries might influence this.
• The role of growing pattern skills in mathematics performance in late primary-school.
• The relationship between algebraic thinking and algebraic notation

MindMasters 2024:

In 2024 I developed and ran a series of hands-on science and psychology days at a science centre in Nottingham (Greens Windmill and Science Centre). During the event, children took part in research studies (CMC, SSEHS) and hands-on games. 60-70 families attended from diverse areas of Nottingham and Leicestershire. I plan to run the event annually. 

Public engagement events:

• Summer Scientist Week committee 2022-2024
• Science in schools 2022-2024
• Science in the park 2023

Three minute thesis winner: Loughborough University 2017: "The shortcut to mathematics".

Three minute thesis winner: East midlands region 2017: "The shortcut to mathematics".

In Preparation

Eaves, J. (in preparation). Going beyond correlations in mathematical cognition: experimental methods for investigating the role of executive functions. Infant and Child Development.

Eaves, J., Gilmore, C., & Cragg, L. (in preparation). Cognitive interference in the learning of multiplication facts. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory and Cognition.

Eaves, J., & Borriello, G. (in preparation). Brief patterning practice and spontaneous focusing on patterns. British Journal of Developmental Psychology.

Under Review

Eaves, J., Gilmore, C., & Cragg, L. (under review, minor revisions submitted). Transfer of congruency effects between Stroop and multiplication tasks: Evidence that retrieval of multiplication facts requires inhibitory control. Cognition.

Eaves, J., Attridge, N., & Gilmore, C. (under review, minor revisions submitted). Misconceptions of the order of operations. Learning and Instruction.

Published

Gilmore, C., Simsek, E., Eaves, J., & Cragg, L. (2024). The role of cognitive and applied executive function skills in learning rational number knowledge. Learning and Individual Differences, 110, 102408. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.lindif.2024.102408

Eaves, J., Attridge, N., & Gilmore, C. (2022). The role of domain-general and domain-specific skills in the identification of arithmetic strategies. Journal of Numerical Cognition, 8(3), 335–350. https://doi.org/10.5964/jnc.7459

Eaves, J., Gilmore, C., & Attridge, N. (2021). Conceptual knowledge of the associativity principle: A review of the literature and an agenda for future research. Trends in Neuroscience and Education, 23, 100152. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tine.2021.100152

Eaves, J., Gilmore, C. K., & Attridge, N. (2020). Investigating the role of attention in the identification of associativity shortcuts using a microgenetic measure of implicit shortcut use. Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, 73, 1017 – 1035, https://doi.org/10.1177/1747021820905739.

Eaves, J., Attridge, N., & Gilmore, C. K. (2019). Increasing the use of conceptually-derived strategies in arithmetic: from inversion to associativity. Learning and Instruction, 61, 1 – 25, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.learninstruc.2019.01.004.

Other

Eaves, J. (2024). “I can’t do maths”. Can we break this popular phrase? A review of the annual Mathematical Cognition and Learning Society conference and a sneak preview of some recent research. The British Psychological Society Cognitive Section Bulletin.

Bartlett, J., & Eaves, J. (2019). An introduction to open science. PsyPAG survival guide 2: A guide for postgraduates. January 2019.

Eaves, J. (2019). Book review “Heterogeneity of function in numerical cognition”. The Cognitive Psychology Bulletin (4), 57- 58.