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Abstract
Although often asked tactfully, a frequent question posed to authors by JRME reviewers is “So what?” Through this simple and well-known question, reviewers are asking: What difference do your findings make? How do your results advance the field? “So what?” is the most basic of questions, often perceived by novice researchers as the most difficult question to answer. Indeed, addressing the “so what” question continues to challenge even experienced researchers. All researchers wrestle with articulating a convincing argument about the importance of their own work. When we try to shape this argument, it can be easy to fall into the trap of making claims about the implications of our findings that reach beyond the data.
... Because I could not imagine how I would implement the think-pair-share strategy in a virtual classroom, or how I would hand out quotes to different students in real time online, I had to decide on another way to introduce my students to what it means to conduct research in mathematics education. The first decision I made was to upload to the course website four different papers [32][33][34][35] and assign each student one paper to read and summarize. Thus, the first lesson was asynchronized. ...
... On the one hand, there are not many opportunities in this course for students to articulate what they know; thus, the original lesson has merit. On the other hand, I am not sure when the opportunity would arise for students to read the four, in my opinion, important papers written by Cai et al. [32][33][34][35]. Perhaps in the future, I would begin in the same way as I did in the original lesson and end the course with the four editorial papers, as a summary for the course. ...
... Michal has not taught the same course again since the pandemic. However, the resources that she adopted during that year, including the four papers authored by Cai et al. [32][33][34][35], have become part of her repertoire, especially as she mentors graduate students in mathematics education who are writing a thesis. While Michal read those papers when they were first published and always thought about integrating them into her teaching, it took the discussion of these papers with students during the pandemic to realize that these papers can help students conceptualize what it means to conduct (good) research in mathematics education. ...
A time of crisis is a time of uncertainty, when many decisions need to be made. This study combines self-reflection, along with community inquiry, as three mathematics teacher educators recount a lesson that they taught in the past and how it was changed due to the COVID-19 crisis. Decisions were analyzed in terms of goals, orientations, and resources. The findings showed that the key issue was the immediate requirement to change one’s regular routine. For some, resources were replaced. For others, dominant orientations receded to the background, and new goals were set. A final reflection conducted after returning to the classroom revealed how challenges during the crisis led to change and the adoption of new goals both during and after the crisis, clarifying our values and leading to the use of additional resources today.
... After assessing high stakes grant applications, research proposals for higher degree research students, and reviewing and writing manuscripts for publication over many years, I often find myself asking "So what?" and wondered why it challenges so many of us to clearly articulate the significance of our research. According to Cai et al. (2019b) about one-third of manuscripts rejected for publication in the Journal of Research in Mathematics Education (JRME) received feedback from reviewers that "So what?" had not been adequately addressed despite being a fundamental aspect of doing and reporting research. In keeping with the conference theme, Surfing the waves of mathematics education, I decided to take a 'deep dive' into the significance of mathematics education research. ...
... One common difficulty relates to the definition that implications should be reasonably derived from data. In their analysis of JRME reviewer comments, Cai et al. (2019b) report that nearly 30% of reviews included concerns about implication claims that were unsupported by the findings. ...
Doing significant research is critical to building the quality of mathematics education research. But doing substantively significant research is inherently difficult because we are studying the unknown. The ability to clearly articulate or ‘sell’ the significance of our research often poses even a greater challenge to researchers. Nevertheless, without such statements of significance we are unlikely to win grants or have papers accepted for publication. In this presentation, I consider what it means when we say that research is significant. My reflections draw upon my own experiences and those of others as part of a ‘deep dive’ in search of significance in mathematics education research.
... A related source of researchable questions is not discussed in this set of papers-unexpected findings. A potentially powerful source of research questions is the discovery of an unexpected finding when conducting research (Cai et al., 2019b). Many important advances in scientific research have their origins in serendipitous, unexpected findings. ...
... Researchers are often faced with unexpected and perhaps surprising results, even when they have developed a carefully crafted theoretical framework, posed research questions tightly connected to this framework, presented hypotheses about expected outcomes, and selected methods that should help answer the research questions. Indeed, unexpected findings can be the most interesting and valuable products of the study and a source of further researchable questions (Cai et al., 2019b). ...
The original version of this article unfortunately contains correction.
... A related source of researchable questions is not discussed in this set of papers-unexpected findings. A potentially powerful source of research questions is the discovery of an unexpected finding when conducting research (Cai et al., 2019b). Many important advances in scientific research have their origins in serendipitous, unexpected findings. ...
... Researchers are often faced with unexpected and perhaps surprising results, even when they have developed a carefully crafted theoretical framework, posed research questions tightly connected to this framework, presented hypotheses about expected outcomes, and selected methods that should help answer the research questions. Indeed, unexpected findings can be the most interesting and valuable products of the study and a source of further researchable questions (Cai et al., 2019b). ...
... yo misma tomé sus referencias para documentar la redacción de esta editorial y también las utilicé como guía para buscar en nuestra disciplina discusiones cercanas. Encontré un capítulo interesante de Sandra Crespo y Jinfa Cai (2019) donde proponen la escritura como una comunicación con los revisores, poniendo atención en los criterios de coherencia, fundamentación de las afirmaciones y la contribución de la investigación, siendo estos los que más resaltan en las evaluaciones de los revisores; también de Sandra Crespo (2016), como editora de la Mathematics Teacher Educator, encontré una interesante editorial donde habla de la retroalimentación de la revisión como proceso formativo, para repensar la forma en que leemos y damos retroalimentación a los manuscritos de nuestros pares; y, finalmente, la serie de editoriales del Journal for Research in Mathematics Education en 2019, sobre la escritura científica tomando en cuenta los procesos de revisión por pares que se han vivido en la revista en un lapso considerable (Cai et al, 2019a(Cai et al, , 2019b(Cai et al, , 2019c(Cai et al, , 2019d. En ninguno encontré un debate en torno a la revisión por pares en sí misma y sobre las dinámicas de sus modelos, así como del impacto de estos en la investigación y sus procesos de comunicación; pero claramente resultan importantes como punto de partida para caminar hacia la revisión por pares como un diálogo para aprender y crecer en colectivo. ...
Significant research in science and mathematics education should advance the field’s knowledge and understanding of the teaching and learning of science and mathematics. How, then, should the significance of a research question in science and mathematics education be assessed? And, when disseminating the findings of research, how should the significance of the research questions be communicated? In this study, we analyzed peer reviews to answer these questions. Our analysis revealed the main issues peer reviewers identify about research questions and the ways they are communicated during the dissemination of research. The findings provide insights for new and experienced researchers about communicating the significance of research questions, and they also illustrate how reviewer comments in peer-reviewed journals can provide a window into the field’s frontiers.
How can research have a larger impact on educational practice? What kinds of research can have the greatest impact on educational practice? These are perennially thought-provoking questions for mathematics education researchers (e.g., Battista et al., 2007; Boerst et al., 2010; Heck et al., 2012; Heid et al., 2006; Herbel-Eisenmann et al., 2016; Langrall, 2014; Silver, 2003) as well as educational researchers more broadly (Kane, 2016; Snow, 2016). In recent years, educational researchers have lamented the failure of educational research to have a transformative effect on educational practice despite repeated reform efforts. One might be tempted to adapt a motto of the Reformation, Ecclesia reformata, semper reformanda , to describe the history of education: reformed and always reforming. Payne (2008) systematically reported the persistence of failure in urban schools despite “so much reform.” However, the failed impact of educational research on practice goes far beyond urban schools (Bryk, Gomez, Grunow, & LeMahieu, 2015). We are forced to ask, how can the field of educational research improve its impact on practice?
In our recent editorials (Cai et al., 2019a, 2019b), we discussed the important roles that research questions and theoretical frameworks play in conceptualizing, carrying out, and reporting mathematics education research. In this editorial, we discuss the methodological choices that arise when one has articulated research questions and constructed at least a rudimentary theoretical framework. Just as the researcher must justify the significance of research questions and the appropriateness of the theoretical framework, we argue that the researcher must thoroughly describe and justify the selection of methods. Indeed, the research questions and the theoretical framework should drive the choice of methods (and not the reverse). In other words, a sufficiently well-specified set of research questions and theoretical framework establish the parameters within which the most productive methods will be selected and developed.
In our March editorial (Cai et al., 2019), we discussed the nature of significant research questions in mathematics education. We asserted that the choice of a suitable theoretical framework is critical to establishing the significance of a research question. In this editorial, we continue our series on high-quality research in mathematics education by elaborating on how a well-constructed theoretical framework strengthens a research study and the reporting of research for publication. In particular, we describe how the theoretical framework provides a connecting thread that ties together all of the parts of a research report into a coherent whole. Specifically, the theoretical framework should help (a) make the case for the purpose of a study and shape the literature review; (b) justify the study design and methods; and (c) focus and guide the reporting, interpretation, and discussion of results and their implications.
In 2002, the National Research Council (NRC) released Scientific Research in Education , a report that proposed six principles to serve as guidelines for all scientific inquiry in education. The first of these principles was to “pose significant questions that can be investigated empirically” (p. 3). The report argued that the significance of a question could be established on a foundation of existing theoretical, methodological, and empirical work. However, it is not always clear what counts as a significant question in educational research or where such questions come from. Moreover, our analysis of the reviews for manuscripts submitted to JRME ¹ suggests that some practical, specific guidance could help researchers develop a significant question or make the case for the significance of a research question when preparing reports of research for publication.
We concluded our November editorial (Cai et al., 2018b) with a promise to consider research paradigms that could bring us closer to the new world we have envisioned where research is intertwined with practice. We will call the paradigms we have in mind research pathways to avoid the range of complicated connotations often applied to the term paradigm . By research pathways in education, we mean the collection of assumptions that define the purposes of educational research, the principles that differentiate research from other educational activities, and the guidelines for how research should be conducted.