Research Committee: Strengthening Research by Designing for Coherence and Connections to Practice NCTM Research Committee

Abstract

The National Council of Teachers of Mathematics (NCTM) is committed to strengthening relations between research and practice and to the development of a coherent knowledge base that is usable in practice. The fifth of NCTM's strategic priorities states, “Bring existing research into the classroom, and identify and encourage research that addresses the needs of classroom practice” (NCTM, 2008). The need to work toward connection and coherence is not unique to the field of mathematics education. Fields such as medicine (e.g., Clancy, 2007), software engineering (e.g., Gorschek, Garre, Larsson, & Wohlin, 2006), and social work (e.g., Hess & Mullen, 1995) routinely attend to these issues. Researchers in many fields strive to find new ways or to engage more effectively through existing means to enhance coherence and connection. In a sense, this is not a goal that can be achieved definitively, but one that requires persistent engagement. In education, the constant flux of variables in the system, such as curriculum, goals for student learning, and school contexts, requires that new connections between research and practice be investigated and that old connections be reexamined. Changes in educational contexts open new territory in need of study and also challenge the coherence of explanations grounded in previous research. In this way, attention of the field to connection and coherence is neither unique to mathematics education nor an effort due solely to inadequacies of research efforts in the past.