Implementation research as an emerging field of mathematics education

Mathematics education (ME) is an established field of research. Yet, the process of implementing findings from ME in schools has only recently emerged as a distinct research area.

This is in contrast to other fields, e.g. health science, were implementation research (IR) is a well-defined research area.This project’s aim is to create an empirically founded theoretical framework for IR in ME concerning grand scale development projects. We ask which existing IR theories appear applicable to implementation initiatives in ME, both how and why.

To verify this, we test identified theories on five carefully selected cases.

Firstly, by historical comparisons of three Swedish projects: the Boost for Mathematics (2011-2016); PUMP (1970-1985); and New Math (1960-1975).

Secondly, by contemporary comparisons of the Boost for Mathematics with the MIST (2007-2011) and TRIUMPHS (2015-2020) projects from the USA.

Based on the outcome of the comparisons, we create a theoretical framework about ME development projects and implementation of research results into school practice within such.

This is used to formulate “guidelines” for future ME development projects.The material is reports on the development projects describing e.g. preparations, implementation processes, and evaluations, as well as research publications about the projects.

A second category is interviews with people involved in these projects.It is a four year project involving two experienced researchers and two post docs.