Not sure why the title left out the essential term: it matters more for
learning programming
I believe the goal is to encourage those (young people) allergic to math but good in languages to realize they could be good at programming. That's worthy and important (though ironic to use a scientific study to do so).
As for the larger question commenters are raising, I notice often programmers reducing programming to problem-solving, and that to modeling, thence to math writ large; then they prove their point by noting that the most significant algorithms have strong and deep roots in math. The argument is: if the pinnacle of programming is math, then the more math-like programming is (in people and style), the better. (Hence: functional programming and provable algorithms are the epitome)
This argument is invariably made only by math experts, and does have the effect of reducing competition and selecting for like-minded persons, so there's at least the possibility of infection with self-interest and bias to the familiar.
I think the real distinction lies in this: with math, once you have a model, you fit things into that, and exclude other things. You do perfectly, but only in your domain. With language, any differance (any difference that makes a difference) starts to be named and tracked and dealt with somehow. It may grow in confusing ways, but it turns out (like architecture) it actually makes much more sense to adapt the structure to the use and relevance than vice-versa.
Sure, some subset of architecture is engineering by necessity, and it's probably even the hardest subset. But that's also the most portable knowledge and practice, and I would argue, thus easier to find and deploy once you've isolated such a need, particularly since mathy stuff fits nicely in a reusable library.
So math is an important but relatively isolated part of programming, and thinking it's ideal for everything is missing the point that programming matters for some purpose.
"attention is all you need" is but one example of the priority of relevance over structure in systems.