Abstract
While considerable resources are invested in mathematics educational research and in nurturing future scholars, little is known about expertise in this field. In this paper, we explore the requirements and duties of mathematics educational researchers, as a preliminary step towards characterizing the components of their expertise. The data corpus of the study consisted of 57 position announcements for assistant and associate professor in 48 universities and 4 colleges located in thirty US states. An inductive content analysis revealed four types of requirements and duties: (1) required background in mathematics and mathematics education; (2) teaching and mentoring duties; (3) research and publishing obligations; (4) department and university duties. The implications of the findings are discussed from the perspectives of high-education programs and graduate students who are considering mathematics education research as their career track. The findings are used to formulate goals and questions for further studies.
Highlights
The role of scientific research cannot be underestimated in the modern world, since it manifests in every aspect of our lives: Research promotes our knowledge in different subjects, its findings are used by policymakers, and its applications are widely used even by people who are not experts in the field (Gordon & Porter, 2009)
In light of the above, exploring the phenomenon of expertise in scientific research is highly relevant both for the research community striving to improve its own practices, and for all others who will eventually benefit from this improvement
The data base for this study consisted of 57 position announcements in the field of mathematics education published by 48 universities and 4 research colleges located in thirty US states
Summary
The role of scientific research cannot be underestimated in the modern world, since it manifests in every aspect of our lives: Research promotes our knowledge in different subjects, its findings are used by policymakers, and its applications are widely used even by people who are not experts in the field (Gordon & Porter, 2009). In light of the above, exploring the phenomenon of expertise in scientific research is highly relevant both for the research community striving to improve its own practices, and for all others who will eventually benefit from this improvement. In mathematics education in particular, the cohort of research experts (i.e. experienced and acknowledged academic scholars) is very influential in a number of ways: Their research contributes to the body of knowledge of mathematics education and shapes the field's state of the art, experts counsel policy-makers, design learning programs and materials, train prospective teachers, and support in-service teachers; experts mentor graduate students, some of which will go on to become leading scholars in mathematics education research. Exploring the characteristics of expert mathematics education researchers (MERchers) can be seen as a natural evolvement on the part of the mathematics education community, which was initially interested in students and teachers (e.g., Safford, 1893; Hanus, 1897) and over the years embraced mathematicians, teacher educators, parents, policymakers and others due to their significance to the learning and teaching enterprise (e.g., Ma, 2001; Riley & Torrance, 2003; Weber, 2008; Zaslavsky & Leikin, 2004)
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