About

Dr. Peng Peng is an Associate Professor in the Department of Special Education at the University of Texas at Austin. His research focuses on the intersection of cognitive psychology and special education, aiming to understand the development of learners by investigating the bidirectional relationship between fundamental cognitive skills—such as working memory and executive function—and academic performance. His work particularly emphasizes students at risk for learning difficulties, analyzing how domain-specific cognitive abilities are applied in subjects like reading and math. Dr. Peng integrates cognitive, social-emotional, and academic factors in his current projects, exploring interventions that combine growth mindset, working memory, and word-problem solving skills to support students with mathematics difficulties and anxiety. He employs advanced meta-analytic methods, including multi-level meta-analysis, network meta-analysis, and meta-analytic structural equation modeling, to synthesize research findings on reading and mathematics learning. His research aims to identify mechanisms linking general cognition and learning across development and to determine optimal intervention strategies for at-risk learners. Dr. Peng's contributions are recognized through funding from national organizations such as the Institute of Education Sciences and the National Science Foundation, and he has an extensive publication record in leading journals. He is also dedicated to scholarly dissemination, serving as an Associate Editor for Psychological Bulletin, Reading and Writing, and Learning and Individual Differences, and participating on editorial boards for several top-tier journals in his field.

Research topics

• Social psychology
• Psychology
• Computer Science
• Developmental psychology
• Cognitive psychology
• Mathematics education

Selected publications

• Behavioral attention and academic achievement: a comprehensive meta-analysis

  Child Neuropsychology · 2026-03-15

  article

  < .01, 95% CI [-.17, -.04]. Overall, this meta-analysis quantified and systematized the significant negative relation between behavioral attention and academic achievement using scientifically rigorous methodology. Findings highlight the importance of ratings specifically of inattention, particularly by teachers, for academic achievement.

  PublisherDOI

• Teachers’ Knowledge of Language and Literacy Concepts: A Meta-Analysis

  Educational Psychology Review · 2026-03-19

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  PublisherDOI

• The Effectiveness of Unimodal and Multimodal Warnings on Drivers’ Response Time: A Meta-Analysis

  Applied Sciences · 2025-01-08 · 9 citations

  articleOpen access

  Driving warning systems are of great help in notifying emergencies. Based on the results of former studies as well as the multisensory integration effect (MIE), the current meta-analysis investigated the effectiveness of utilizing unimodal (i.e., auditory, visual, and tactile) and multimodal (i.e., bimodal and trimodal) driving warning systems in drivers’ response time. Sixty eligible articles representing 308 individual studies were included in this meta-analysis. The results showed: First, both auditory warnings (pooled Hedges’ g = 0.98, 95% CI: 0.34 to 1.61, p &lt; 0.01) and tactile warnings (pooled Hedges’ g = 0.77, 95% CI: 0.22 to 1.32, p &lt; 0.01) were found to reduce the response time significantly compared to no warning, but visual warnings did not produce significant benefit; Second, tactile warnings outperformed the visual warnings (pooled Hedges’ g = 0.74, 95% CI: 0.11 to 1.37, p &lt; 0.05); Third, auditory-tactile bimodal warnings surpassed unimodal warnings (p &lt; 0.05); Fourth, drivers’ response time under trimodal warning conditions were shorter than that under bimodal warning conditions but not in a significant level. Overall, the results support multisensory redundant signal effect hypothesis in multimodal conditions. Current study provides a quantitative understanding of the effectiveness of driving warnings and could contribute to the design of related technologies.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• An investigation of phonological predictors in Chinese developmental dyslexia using a machine learning approach

  Reading and Writing · 2025-01-24 · 10 citations

  articleOpen access

  Abstract Phonological awareness (PA), rapid automatized naming (RAN), and verbal short-term memory (VSTM) deficits have been identified as risk factors for developmental dyslexia (DD) of alphabetic orthographies. Yet, these three facets of phonological skills in DD of Chinese, a logographic writing system, have rarely been investigated together. The present study aimed to investigate PA, RAN, and VSTM deficits in Chinese children with DD. We compared 128 third and fourth grade Mandarin-speaking Chinese children with DD aged between 8 and 11 years (mean age = 9.4 years, 73 male) and 135 age-matched controls on 7 phonological tasks, including 2 PA tasks (phoneme deletion and onset/rime deletion), 3 RAN tasks (digit, object, and color), and 2 VSTM task (spoonerism and digit span). A combination of logistic regression analysis and a machine learning approach with SHapley Additive exPlanations (SHAP) methods was employed for data analyses. Logistic regression analysis showed that similar to the results from DD in six European languages by Landerl and Ramus et al. (2013), phoneme deletion and RAN digits played major roles in predicting Chinese DD, while digit span played a minor role. SHAP analysis revealed that the most effective predictor tasks for Chinese DD are RAN pictures, phoneme deletion, and spoonerism. The results suggest important roles of RAN and PA and a minor role of VSTM in predicting Chinese DD. Findings have important implications for the diagnosis and remediation of Chinese DD.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• A Network Meta-analysis of Multi-component Reading Interventions for Students with Reading Difficulties: Active-Ingredient vs. Ingredient-Interaction?

  Educational Psychology Review · 2025-08-22 · 1 citations

  article1st authorCorresponding
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• A Comparison Between the Oddball Paradigm and the Multi‐Feature Paradigm: Evidence From an Event‐Related Potential Study on Processing Mandarin Vowels and Tones

  European Journal of Neuroscience · 2025-08-01 · 1 citations

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  The multi-feature paradigm, despite its growing use in studies on MMN (mismatch negativity), faces challenges in broader adoption due to doubts about its efficacy compared to the oddball paradigm. More studies are needed to determine whether the multi-feature paradigm is sensitive to capture the MMN under complex auditory conditions, particularly in tonal languages like Mandarin. In the present study, Mandarin syllables were used as stimuli to examine differences in event-related potentials (ERPs) between the two paradigms. Our findings indicate that both vowel and tone deviations elicited similar ERPs in both paradigms, thereby supporting the validity of the multi-feature paradigm. However, the MMNs elicited by vowels and tones in the multi-feature paradigm were smaller in amplitude and occurred earlier in latency. Furthermore, our findings revealed a distinct temporal course for processing consonants, vowels, and tones, with vowels eliciting the earliest latencies, followed by tones, and consonants demonstrating the longest latencies. These findings provide further evidence for the multi-feature paradigm to be used in MMN research.

  PublisherDOI

• Exploring the Effectiveness of Word-Problem Strategy and Strategy Combinations: A Systematic Review and Network Meta-Analysis

  Educational Psychology Review · 2025-08-11 · 3 citations

  review1st authorCorresponding
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• Research on the "IISP" Undergraduate Talent Training Mode of Civil Engineering Majors in Local Universities Driven by Digital Intelligence: A Case Study of Hunan University of Arts and Science

  Journal of Higher Education Research · 2025-03-22

  articleOpen accessSenior author

  Against the backdrop of the rapid development of digital and intelligent technologies today, local universities' civil engineering majors are facing new opportunities and challenges. In order to meet the needs of the times and cultivate high-quality and innovative civil engineering talents, Hunan University of Arts and Science actively explores the undergraduate talent training mode of "IISP" (Ideological and Political Education Integration, Interdisciplinary Integration, Specialized Education and Entrepreneurship Integration, Post Linkage) driven by digital and intelligent technologies. This paper deeply analyzes the connotations and significance of this mode, elaborates in detail on its specific implementation strategies, including the specific paths of ideological and political education integration, curriculum setting and teaching methods of interdisciplinary integration, construction of the practice system of specialized education and entrepreneurship integration, and specific measures of post linkage. Taking the practice of Hunan University of Arts and Science as an example, through specific teaching cases, it explores the achievements, existing problems and corresponding improvement strategies in the implementation process of this mode, aiming to provide useful references for the talent training of civil engineering majors in local universities.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Early numeracy and mathematics development: A longitudinal meta-analysis on the predictive nature of early numeracy.

  Journal of Educational Psychology · 2025-01-06 · 25 citations

  articleOpen access
  PublisherDOI

• The role of domain-specific working memory and emotion regulation in the mathematics anxiety-performance relation among upper elementary students.

  Developmental Psychology · 2025-09-08 · 2 citations

  articleOpen access1st authorCorresponding

  This study examined the role of domain-specific working memory and emotion regulation in the relation between mathematics anxiety and mathematics performance among 264 upper elementary students (Grades 3-5). Participants completed measures of mathematics testing and learning anxiety, verbal and numerical working memory, cognitive reappraisal, expressive suppression, general anxiety, mathematics self-efficacy, and calculation. Results showed that verbal working memory, but not numerical working memory, mediated the relation between mathematics testing anxiety and calculation. Higher verbal working memory exacerbated the negative effects of both mathematics testing and learning anxiety on calculation. Higher cognitive reappraisal exacerbated the negative effects of mathematics testing anxiety on calculation. These findings suggest that mathematics anxiety hinders calculation not by disrupting numerical processing but through verbal rumination and verbal information processing, especially in children with strong verbal working memory. For children who are still developing emotion regulation and foundational mathematics, cognitive reappraisal, a typically adaptive emotion regulation strategy, may paradoxically increase cognitive load, intensifying the adverse effects of mathematics anxiety during testing. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved).

  PublisherDOI

Recent grants

• Project AIM: The Network Meta-analysis of Active Ingredients of Mathematics Instruction

  NSF · $598k · 2024–2027

Frequent coauthors

• Hui Cai

  Vanderbilt University Medical Center

  16 shared

• Ping‐Ping Bao

  16 shared

• Wei Lu

  16 shared

• Xiao‐Ou Shu

  16 shared

• Ying Zheng

  Shanghai Medical College of Fudan University

  16 shared

• Genming Zhao

  Fudan University

  16 shared

• Sha Tao

  China Agricultural University

  12 shared

• Douglas Fuchs

  Vanderbilt University

  11 shared

Labs

• Department of Special Education, University of Texas at AustinPI

Education

• Ph.D. in Special Education, Department of Special Education

  Vanderbilt University Peabody College of Education and Human Development

  2014

• Master in Educational and Developmental Psychology, State Key Lab of Neuroscience and Learning

  Beijing Normal University

  2009

• Bachelor in Psychology

  Beijing Normal University School of Psychology

  2006

Awards & honors

• 2018 Early Career Award from the International Dyslexia Asso…