How does Mastermind improve attention in the classroom?

Mastermind Cognitive Training trains sustained, selective, and divided attention through short, adaptive, game-based sessions. A baseline assessment shows where a student's attention stands, training strengthens it session by session, and built-in reassessment shows the change over time.

What do attention difficulties look like in a classroom?

Less as a diagnosis than as small classroom moments: work that starts strong and trails off before the last question, a train of thought lost the moment the room gets noisy, or a student who can follow the lesson or take notes but not both at once. Those three are sustained, selective, and divided attention.

Is there research behind Mastermind's approach to attention?

Yes. A registered, randomized controlled trial (ISRCTN75915439) found statistically significant improvement in teacher-reported attention for students who trained on Mastermind, compared with a control group. See the trial's findings for the figures, the institutions, and the preprint.

What ages does Mastermind's attention training work for?

Mastermind auto-levels to each student's skill in real time, so the same platform works across grade and skill levels. The Bedfordshire trial studied students ages 8 to 10, and the underlying attention skills apply more broadly.

How much staff time does attention training require?

Very little. The baseline assessment takes about 30 minutes. Training is self-guided, running 20 minutes, three times a week. Mastermind extends what your staff can already do.

An Attention and Focus Program for Schools

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Mastermind Cognitive Training is an attention and focus program for schools. It assesses, builds, and measures the sustained, selective, and divided attention that classroom learning depends on. Steady attention is what keeps a student engaged with a lesson and the work that follows, so effort turns into academic progress.

A registered clinical trial at the University of Bedfordshire found significant improvement in student attention and eye movement control: the steadiness that lets a student track along a line of text and find the next one.

ISRCTN75915439 · N=168 · See the trial's findings

3×

Growth in focus

Sustaining focus through a task and returning after an interruption
3×

Growth in processing speed

Taking in information and responding without losing pace

Across Mastermind studies

The kinds of attention Mastermind builds

Attention is a set of related skills, not a single one. Sustained, selective, and divided attention are the skills teachers often notice first, with alternating attention, the ability to shift between demands, close behind. Each can be strengthened with practice and can be observed in everyday learning, not just measured by a score.

Holds focus on one task from start to finish

The last question on a page gets the same care as the first. A student holds focus through a long stretch of work, past the point where interest fades, so the effort stays even from the start of a task to the end of it.

Keeps the one thing that matters over the noise around it

In a room full of movement and sound, a student keeps hold of the teacher's voice and lets the rest fall back. The one detail that matters on a crowded page stays in front, and the noise around it settles into the background.

Manages more than one demand without dropping either

A student listens and writes at the same time and keeps both going, holding the thread of one while attending to the other. Focus moves between two demands and back again, and neither one falls away while the other is handled.

Shifts focus between tasks that need different kinds of thinking

A student moves from listening to writing and back, or from reading a problem to working it, without losing the place they left. Focus lands cleanly on each task in turn rather than blurring the two together.

How Mastermind assesses and builds attention

Assess

30 minutes

Standardized cognitive protocols and performance tasks produce a Mastermind Learning Readiness Profile.

Train

20-minute sessions

Training starts where each student is and adapts as they improve, so it fits every student.

Measure

Standardized and comparable

Growth shows up skill by skill, so each student's progress is easy to see.

Case study

Fusion Academy

With more than 80 campuses, Fusion Academy serves students with learning, social, or emotional differences. The school ran this study in partnership with Mastermind Cognitive Training.

Students using Mastermind processed information about 10% faster than their peers, about 18 milliseconds quicker on each response. That growth rests on the cognitive skills behind attention, led by cognitive flexibility, overall cognitive performance, and visual attention.

38 trained · 27 control10–18 weeks7 locations~60 minutes per week

See the research

Mastermind students vs peers

Cognitive Flexibility*: 5.3×
Overall Cognitive Performance: 5.1×
Visual Attention & Tracking: 4.7×

Students not using Mastermind Students using Mastermind

*Cognitive flexibility is the ability to shift and adapt cognitive responses.

View all Fusion results

Mastermind students vs peers

Cognitive

6.9× Working Memory
5.3× Cognitive Flexibility
5.1× Overall Cognitive Performance
4.7× Visual Attention & Tracking

Reading

3.1× Reading Comprehension

Speed and efficiency

Reading

21% faster reading after training
35% reduction in reading response-time variability

Math

24% faster math processing, without losing accuracy
13% faster mathematical decision-making, without losing accuracy

Processing

10% faster processing and response speed vs peers (~18 ms)

Also observed

Improved performance on skills that support focus and attention
Improved oculomotor performance (saccades, pursuits, fixations)

Independently studied

Across 168 students in UK primary schools, Mastermind produced significant improvement in teacher-reported attention (p=.017) and in eye-tracking measures of visual control (p=.001), the foundation of fluent reading.

Led by Dr. Anastasia Giannakopoulou, lead researcher on the trial, with Dr. Joaquin Anguera, a UCSF cognitive neuroscientist and leading researcher in game-based cognitive training.

Read the Research

Preprint

Virtual Reality and Tablet Cognitive Training Improve Attention and Academic Skills Without Dose Effects

Giannakopoulou A, Gordon AM, Gallen CE, Seaman M, Fedele D, Anguera JA

doi: 10.1101/2025.09.16.676629 ISRCTN75915439 · N=168 · Ages 8–10 University of Bedfordshire · UCSF Neuroscape

Preview a Learning Readiness Profile

A Learning Readiness Profile does more than measure. For each student it shows which skills are strong, which to build first, what helps in class, and what progress looks like, so a classroom teacher has somewhere to start. For attention, it gives something usually caught in the moment an objective baseline, and a clear way to show it changing across the year.

Mastermind Learning Readiness Profile

Learning is most accessible for this student when work has a clear first step and a quick reset when it feels hard, before frustration builds or attention drifts.

Maya R. · GR 4 · Baseline

Support first

Focus & AttentionStarts work and stays with it Emerging

PacingKeeps pace across multi-step work Developing

Response InhibitionPauses to check before answering Developing

Working MemoryHolds directions while working Developing

Build from

Processing SpeedTakes work in at a steady pace Age-typical

Object TrackingFollows information on the page Age-typical

Sample reportAn instructional tool, not a medical diagnosis.

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What it takes to run Mastermind in your school

A student works through a session on a tablet at a classroom desk while classmates work nearby.

Evidence your team can act on

Attention is usually noticed in the moment and described after the fact, rarely measured on its own. The Learning Readiness Profile gives each student's attention an objective baseline and a clear way to show how it changes across the year, aligned with the observations your team already makes.

Schedule a Demo

When it runs: Two twenty-minute sessions a week, built into an intervention block, rotation, or the start of a period. It fits into time your schedule already has.
How students begin: Sessions are self-guided, allowing students to start immediately without educator training or curriculum prep.
What it runs on: A tablet. Each session is individualized, so one device can serve multiple students across the week just as easily as an entire class.
How it is funded: Title IV-A (Student Support and Academic Enrichment) can support programs like this. Title I funds can also be used in schools that qualify.

We have never seen this many students improve a reading level or even a full grade level in one term as we have with the Mastermind program.

Ms. Dani Strickler Teacher · Icknield Lower School, Dunstable

Where attention fits

This page covers attention on its own: staying with a task, filtering out distraction, and managing more than one demand. When the concern is wider or more specific, these pages go deeper:

Frequently asked questions

The questions institutional buyers ask first. For pricing and rollout specifics, a member of our team can walk you through it.