Submission Options

Note: To allow as many people as possible to contribute, we are limiting the submissions to one presentation per person. That is, each conference attendee is allowed to be the presenting author on only one submission. Being a discussant in a symposium is not considered having a presenting author role; there are no limits on submissions as co-authors.

To contribute a presentation, please create an account and submit the abstract(s) through ConfTool: https://www.conftool.org/mcls-2025.

1. Symposia

A symposium consists of either four presentations OR three presentations and one discussant (i.e., total four speakers). The duration of a symposium is 75 minutes.

Due to the increasing number of symposium submissions over the years, we may not be able to accommodate all submissions. To increase your chances of being accepted, please consider the following for your symposium proposal:

All proposed presentations should plan to have data collected and present some form of qualitative and/or quantitative results at the conference.
If you plan to only present theoretical discussion and plans for research, data collection, and analyses, please submit them as preregistration posters instead!
We encourage an inclusion of speakers from diverse institutions and/or backgrounds, while ensuring coherence of contributions.

We understand that some funding bodies require a conference contribution to allow conference expenses to be covered. In case a symposium proposal is rejected, individual presenters will be offered the opportunity to present their work as a poster or lightning talk instead.

Symposium submissions require:

Names, emails, and affiliations of all authors and, if included, discussant
Title of the symposium (in sentence case)
Introduction to the topic and objectives of the symposium (max. 250 words)
Select up to three thematic topics
Enter up to five keywords
Indicate whether your symposium would like to be considered as a Plenary Session
Indicate whether you anticipate Sign Language Interpretation or other accommodations for your presentation. This will only be used for organizational planning, not for review or evaluation.
Title and Abstract for each individual presentation (max. 250 words, incl. references)
Figures or images cannot be included

Plenary Session: This year, we would like to feature one or two symposia as a plenary session(s), during which no other presentations will be scheduled, and all participants can attend the session. The plenary session(s) will encourage deeper discussions on a topic and bring the community together to promote aspects of research, policy, and/or practice in mathematical cognition and learning. Should submitting authors be interested to have their symposium considered as a Plenary Session, they have the option to check a box when submitting the symposium abstract.

Please also note that all presenters will be required to provide the slides of presentations or a digital version of a poster on the dedicated MCLS website at least 48 hours before the presentation. These do not need to be final copies but should be close to the final draft of these materials. This is to ensure materials will be accessible to all attendees and ensure sign language interpreters have the necessary time to familiarize themselves with the content of the presentation.

2. Posters, preregistration posters, and lightning talks

There will be 60-minute poster sessions spread across the conference days. Each poster occupies one 1.2m tall x 1.8m wide poster board. Posters of sizes 36” x 48” (0.9m x 1.2m) or 42” x 56” (1.1m x 1.4m) will fit the board.

Poster/preregistration poster submissions require:

Names and affiliations of all authors
Poster title (in sentence case)
Select up to three thematic areas
Enter up to five keywords
Indicate whether your poster would like to be considered as a Lightning Talk
Indicate whether you anticipate Sign Language Interpretation or other accommodations for your presentation. This will only be used for organizational planning, not for review or evaluation.
Poster abstract (max. 250 words, including references)
Figures or images cannot be included

Poster abstracts include introduction, methods, results, and conclusions.

Preregistration posters give the opportunity to submit plans for studies yet to be undertaken, rather than work that has already been completed. Preregistration posters would normally aim at getting feedback on the design of studies to be undertaken or on analysis plans for projects in progress.

Preregistration posters must include introduction (rationale for carrying out the study and hypotheses), methods (how the hypotheses will be tested), and approach for statistical analysis (how the data will be analyzed and what the predicted outcomes are). Preregistration posters usually have little/no data (apart from any preliminary work that helped to generate the research question).

Submitting authors have the option to indicate that they would like their poster to be considered as a lightning talk. Lightning Talk sessions last 75 minutes and consist of several 5-7 minute presentations. Should submitting authors be interested in sharing their work in the form of a lightning talk (instead of a poster/preregistration poster), they have the option to check a box when submitting a poster/preregistration poster abstract.

Sign Up to be a Member of the Scientific Committee:
Please consider serving on the MCLS 2025 Scientific Committee to review abstract submissions. You can sign up as a reviewer through the MCLS 2025 Scientific Committee Recruitment Form. Reviewers will receive a certificate to acknowledge their service.

Members of the Scientific Committee should have a Master's degree or equivalent.
Each member will receive 5-10 submissions to review.