Systematics review of the interdisciplinary exchange among mathematics education and neuroscience

This paper presents systematic survey of empirical studies that implement neurocognitive tools to study mathematical processing, learning and problem solving. The survey comprised three stages: identification, screening, and analysis. The search was restricted to English-language papers published in research journals. Of a total of 35,692 records that were identified initially, 598 papers were found eligible for precise data analysis through screening procedure. The bibliometric analysis focused on publication years, journals and authors as well as on collaboration between the researchers. In the content analysis, along with the analysis of neurocognitive tools used in the studies, we screened the papers for the groups of research participants; mathematical topics, concepts and skills examined in the studies. We found that there has been tremendous growth in the past decade in the use of neurocognitive tools to research mathematics learning. The most commonly used tools are the fMRI, EEG, and eye tracking, while use of tools such as GSR and fNIRS remains highly uncommon. There is a strong focus on studying arithmetic, and a recent trend toward examining problem-solving skills, but higher mathematics learning and equation solving remain under-researched. Finally, we found that despite the immense growth in neuroscience research relevant to mathematics education, few studies of this type are published in mathematics education journals.