What is the Evidence for Best Practice in Mathematics Education?

Rosemary Callingham, Judy Anderson, Kim Beswick, Colin Carmichael, Vince Geiger, Merrilyn Goos, Derek Hurrell, Christopher Hurst, Tracey Muir, & Helen Watt

A recent national study aimed to provide an evidence base for best practice in mathematics education in Australia. Schools were included in the study on the basis of growth in NAPLAN 680 numeracy from 2011 to 2013, and 2012 to 2014, in Years 3 to 5 and Years 7 to 9. Using Bronfenbrenner’s (1989) Ecological Systems Theory as a structural framework, the study aimed to identify goal orientations and costs associated with achieving these goals at system, school, classroom, and individual level. Mastery goal orientations were defined as having a focus on connections within mathematics, relevance, and cooperation, whereas performance goal orientations were defined as having a focus on skill development, achievement, and competition. Findings suggest that successful schools, regardless of their social context, were consistent in their focus on mathematics across the school, in classrooms and among individuals. Mastery approaches were associated with reduced costs in terms of students’perceptions of effort, social costs and mathematics difficulty. Teacher enthusiasm for mathematics teaching emerged as a key factor. Issues that arose from the study will provide starting point for discussion.

Reviewing of research papers

Research papers will be blind reviewed by a panel of peers approved by the conference committee. The main purpose of the refereeing process is to contribute to the growth and development of quality practice in mathematics education research. Thus reviewers are asked to assist authors by providing helpful feedback and to comment on the suitability of papers for presentation at the conference. Accordingly, it will not be assumed that published papers presented at the conference will be as polished as articles in scholarly journals. Referees will be asked to assess papers being reviewed against the accepted norms for scholarly works presented at MERGA conferences, as set out above.

Each conference proceedings’ Editorial Team will exercise discretion over the reviewing process.

Reviewers’ comments will be returned to the authors. Authors whose papers are not accepted for publication may be invited by the editorial panel to present their paper at the conference, with an abstract (only) being published in the proceedings. Papers may be rejected outright, with no opportunity for presentation at the conference in an alternative form.

The MERGA website has detailed advice about criteria for reviewing of MERGA papers, review forms, and examples of strong and poor reviews of different types.

What is the Evidence for Best Practice in Mathematics Education?

What is the Evidence for Best Practice in Mathematics Education?

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