Need for cognition correlates moderately with mathematics achievement (r = .25)¶

Claim · All claims
Evidence · 1 study · review r3 · q3 · i2 medium · n=30 meta-analyses, 66 correlations from 13,853 effect sizes (~4.66 million participants)
Currency · newest study 2025 · not yet checked against its sources · not reviewed by a person

Need for cognition, the tendency to engage in and enjoy effortful thinking, correlates r = .25 with mathematics achievement (Liu & Nesbit 2024, k = 12, n = 2,115). These are correlations compiled across meta-analyses: they describe how strongly the characteristic goes with mathematics achievement, not what causes it.

Subclaims¶

q3 i2 Need for cognition, the tendency to engage in and enjoy effortful thinking, correlates r = .25 with mathematics achievement (Liu & Nesbit 2024, k = 12, n = 2,115). → Breit et al. 2025

Evidence¶

Breit et al. 2025¶

Breit, M., Schneider, M., & Preckel, F. (2025). Mathematics achievement and learner characteristics: A systematic review of meta-analyses. Learning and Individual Differences, 118, 102621. doi:10.1016/j.lindif.2024.102621

q3 · systematic review of meta-analyses · i2 · medium effect, r = .25 (k = 12) · n=30 meta-analyses, 66 correlations from 13,853 effect sizes (~4.66 million participants) · review · r3

The review compiles zero-order correlations from published meta-analyses (each with at least ten effect sizes, the largest one kept where several covered a variable), found by a systematic PsycINFO search in July 2024. It pools nothing further and controls for nothing: many of these characteristics correlate with one another, so a correlation here says how strongly the characteristic goes with mathematics achievement, not that it causes it. One meta-analytic estimate, r = .25 (Liu & Nesbit 2024, 12 effect sizes, 2,115 school and university students).

Discussion¶

The authors relate it to engagement with cognitively demanding material; need for cognition also correlates with intelligence, academic self-concept and intrinsic motivation, so the estimate is not unique to it. It rests on twelve effect sizes.

Learner Variables¶

• Need for Cognition — predictor: learners who differ on it differ in outcomes

Related Claims¶

• Mathematics achievement correlates more strongly with learners' knowledge, skills and cognitive abilities than with their personality traits, goals or emotions
• Mathematics self-concept correlates strongly with mathematics achievement (r = .43), while verbal self-concept barely does (r = .12) — related