Learning, teaching, and using measurement: introduction to the issue

Abstract

This issue presents a collection of empirical research reports that have examined different aspects of the learning, teaching, and use of measurement. The work reported addresses measurement as an important domain of school mathematics, including vocational education, and measurement in use in various occupations and workplaces. The collection is diverse in many ways, as characterized below. Though the focus of many articles is the measurement of space (length, area, or volume), attention is also given in some to non-spatial quantities such as time, weight, and money. The appearance of this issue in ZDM reflects the concern felt in many countries that measurement is an important elementary mathematical and scientific competence, but one that—as evidence considered below suggests—appears to be poorly learned. Weak learning of measurement—particularly of the conceptual principles that underlie measurement procedures—undermines students’ ability to learn and understand more advanced mathematical and scientific content and hence their access to important kinds of skilled work—both professional and not. The research reported in this issue will not solve that problem. Instead, the issue targets a more modest goal: That more researchers across the globe will reconsider the importance of measurement (in school and out), its place in elementary mathematics, and the need to pursue research that will produce partial answers the basic question, ‘‘why are we doing so poorly teaching and learning measurement?’’ We hope these partial answers, as they assemble, will help curriculum developers design more potent materials, teachers teach the measurement content more effectively, and assessment professionals develop more revealing assessments of learning. In this introduction, we seek to orient the reader to the collected articles in two ways. First, we briefly review some of the issues that make measurement ‘‘basic and fundamental’’ content in mathematics and science, in order to orient and frame the inquiries reported in the articles. We also identify some of the principal themes pursued and central results reported in the articles. While this overview is approximate, leaving out important messages particular to individual articles, it is offered to the reader as a partial ‘‘roadmap’’ to the issue—and as motivation to explore further.