Abstract
Stephen Lerman has done the community of mathematics education researchers a service by opening up some of the issues that arise as a result of the proliferation of theories that concern the learning and teaching of mathematics. We teach research students in mathematics education that it is necessary to be guided by one or more theories in designing and carrying out a research study in this field. For the coherence of the research, the particular conceptual framework developed from the theoretical considerations should inform the overall design as well as every detail of the decisions made regarding methodology, participants, specific methods of data collection, plans for analysis once the data are collected, and finally the reporting of the results. Every research decision should have a rationale that is grounded in the conceptual framework. Thus theory is eminently important. But why is it important? And as Lerman asks, is it a problem that there is a growing plethora of theories that have potential uses in our field? He comes to the ultimate conclusion that it is not a problem, and I agree with him.
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© 2010 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg
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Presmeg, N. (2010). Preface to Part IV. In: Sriraman, B., English, L. (eds) Theories of Mathematics Education. Advances in Mathematics Education. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-00742-2_10
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-00742-2_10
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