CHAPTER III

[THE LANDSCAPE OF MATHEMATICS EDUCATION]

3.2 Research in Mathematics Education

3.2.1 Research
Research is being carried out in ever more fields, by ever more people,
albeit for a rather limited and invariable number of reasons. The question what is
the use of it? can be answered differently as soon as one adds for whom?.
What is the use of it?
In the sense of Arts and Sciences, mathematics is an art as well as a
science, and for many mathematicians even more an art than a science. A longing
for abstract beauty has been a forceful motor and a trustworthy guide in
mathematics and in the so-called exact sciences. Therefore, as far as mathematics
research is concerned, beauty is not a convincing answer to the question What is
the use of it?.
There is, however, another aspect: mathematics is true. Wis en zeker - sure
and certain. Research results can be checked, errors can be tracked down, and, if
experts disagree, they may do so about good or bad, rather than about true or
false. In the so-called exact sciences, checking becomes more troublesome the
farther away one moves from mathematics. Anyway the ultimate judge is Nature,
who rewards good questions with good answers.
3.2.2 Educational Research
1. What is the use of it?
By education I mean a practice, though often enough this word is used as a
synonym for research on education For the present moment, when I speak about
educational research in general I intend it to include research on mathematics
education as long as, for the researcher, mathematics is no more than an easily
available and easily handled subject matter, chosen to test and apply general ideas
and methods, with no regard for the specific nature of mathematics and
mathematics instruction.

Revisiting Mathematics EducationPage 1

CHAPTER III

[THE LANDSCAPE OF MATHEMATICS EDUCATION]

The enormously rich and useful educational literature, which addresses

itself most directly to its presumed users - parents, teachers, trainers, counselors is to such a degree and so straightforwardly the result and the expression of
everyday experience, craft and philosophy that however they might have been
influenced by research, these influences can hardly, if at all, be retrieved nor their
impact be evaluated in this vast and wealthy field.
2. Methodology
Mathematics can afford a vivid interplay between form and contents
because in playing this game they can be neatly separated from each other. In
educational research, however, separating form and content is not feasible, and,
wherever this is attempted the consequence is estrangement. This is covered up, if
need be, by distinctions like those between validity, which is the researchers
business, and reliability, which is the methodologists responsibility and which by
mere convention is measured by a formula that, in fact., does not measure
anything that deserves this name.
3. Comparative Research
A large part of educational research is comparative. Cognitive or affective
results of education are compared with one another according to such variables as
nationality, instructional system, educational philosophy, schools and school
system, gender, ethnicity, race, socio-economic background (of pupils or
teachers), the teaching and evaluation methods applied, the aids, instruments,
textbook series used.
4. Tests
Rationality requires statements to be tested for their truth instructional
methods, for the benefit of education, and individuals, for their own benefit and
that of society. Tests should be trustworthy, and what is more trustworthy than
numbers, obtained by measurement, and moreover amenable to mathematical
processing?

Revisiting Mathematics EducationPage 2

CHAPTER III

[THE LANDSCAPE OF MATHEMATICS EDUCATION]

3.2.3 Developmental Research

1. Change
Education is meant to prepare one for future life, yet neither the future of
individuals nor of society are predictable well enough to provide a solid basis for
any choice of education, which, conversely, is influential as a condition of this
future.
2. Errors
The inclination to study error is quite understandable. Normal things need no
explanation, but what really strikes the beholder are deviations from the norm,
that is, from what is felt or agreed on to be normal. Education, as looked upon in
its present state, is taken for granted, and against this background of certainty its
actual or potential diversity can be a matter of study that handles liability to
success or failure as its criterion - comparative research, which is questionable as
such -rather than tiological.
3. Research and Development
Characterises developmental research: it takes place within the educational
environment, which is expected to undergo and to activate change.
Development made its entrance as a technical term in the nineteen-sixties, when
educationalists were trying to take advantage of the then noisy call for change. It
appeared in the combination R&D -research and development which was soon
amplified by another D, that of dissemination.

3.3 Practice of Math Education

3.3.1 Practice
Practice has both a descriptive and a normative meaning. If it is
understood in the descriptive sense, its qualitative evaluation covers such a broad
range that it defies any attempt at description, even when restricted to one single
country and one single type of institution or part of it. So the normative element
cannot be dispensed with in organising a description, Moreover, individual
practitioners or groups of them act according to explicit or implicit norms, which
compete with or are derived from more general ones.
3.3.2 A Background of Competence

Revisiting Mathematics EducationPage 3

CHAPTER III

[THE LANDSCAPE OF MATHEMATICS EDUCATION]

How competent may I feel to deal with practice in its descriptive or

normative aspects or in a synthesis of both? we are living in one world, most of us
under similar social conditions, and even though learning ones own language and
learning toteach it may mean different things in countries where people speak
other languages, mathematics is the same all over the world, and so learning
mathematics and learning to teach mathematics and to develop mathematics
education are the same as well.
3.3.3 Taught and Learned the Subject Matter
There are broad chasms between what is being taught in various countries.
But does it matter? I dont think so. As I see it, if things are to be compared, the
proper question to be asked is not what is taught here and there but what is
learned, what is really learned, what lastingly affects the minds of the learners.
3.3.4 Taught and Learned the Agents
In this context, one can try to account for learning as a human activity. Von
Neumann once claimed that, in principle, any human activity can be taken over by
computers, provided it has been analysed in detail.
3.3.5 Taught and Learned Interlaced
Interactivity means that both teachers and learners are agents as well as
being acted on. Taught and learned should coincide, or, even better, compete with
each other on equal terms. These are high demands, and even higher if learning is
to mean long-term learning.
3.3.6 Change
Change, in particular under the name of innovation, is tacitly understood
to involve improvement. Rapid changes are known as revolutions, yet revolution
need not imply innovation.
3.3.7 The Agents of Change
There are three Agents of change :
o The educational developer as an organiser
o The teacher
o The teacher-student
3.3.8 Mathematics for All
In this perspective mathematics for all means: as much and as good active
mathematics as is needed to participate in even more and even better passive
Revisiting Mathematics EducationPage 4

CHAPTER III

[THE LANDSCAPE OF MATHEMATICS EDUCATION]

mathematics. I asked: We teach classes, so why shouldnt we expect classes to

learn? Life is cooperation. Why do examinations focus on individual
performances and entirely disregard collective ones? The answer is, as you may
expect: They should not. This is a verbal answer, indeed. It will take much time
and trouble before these words become deeds. A first step on this long path is to
formulate, besides individual objectives, cooperative ones of Mathematics for All,
and to describe specific tasks to be performed in cooperation with others.

Revisiting Mathematics EducationPage 5