Mathematics education research must be useful for the classroom

TL;DR

This paper discusses the importance of ensuring mathematics education research is practically useful for classroom teaching, emphasizing the need for research to impact real-world educational practices.

Contribution

It presents a structured debate on whether mathematics education research should be directly applicable to classrooms, encouraging ongoing dialogue on research relevance.

Findings

Debate highlights contrasting views on research applicability

Raises questions about barriers to research implementation

Encourages critical engagement within the research community

Abstract

The theme of the PME-48 conference, Making sure that mathematics education research reaches the classroom, highlights a key concern: not all mathematics education research informs classroom practice. This raises several fundamental questions: Which research fails to reach the classroom? Why? And should all research be expected to do so? Accordingly, it is fitting that the plenary panel engages with these important issues by debating the following motion: Mathematics education research must be useful for the classroom. This paper presents the debate as structured for the purposes of this publication. Following an introduction, Anthony Essien and Salome Martinez Salazar argue against the motion, while Maitree Inprasitha and Demetra Pitta-Pantazi argue in support. We hope that this debate will stimulate ongoing dialogue and encourage the mathematics education research community to critically engage with this issue - one that is central to the relevance and impact of research in the field.