Commentary on Theories of Mathematics Education

Appreciating Scientificity in Qualitative
Research
Stephen J. Hegedus
I wish to situate this essay in an educational paradigm that is concerned with the education
of itself, its peers and its students. From here, we acknowledge the necessity
for knowledge and that in learning we discover knowledge either through ourselves,
through our peers or through synthesizing a dialectic between the governing bodies
of knowledge and an educational system. We might understand that we discover
knowledge in an educational setting by processes that are akin to scientific discovery.
I propose that we establish knowledge in this very way and in reflecting on our
constructing-knowledge enterprise, we endeavor to adhere to a meta-constructionist
phenomenology, which draws upon the learning theory of constructionism (Papert
and Harel 1991) whereby we establish a construction built on a faithful establishment
of education and assess the mechanics of the constructed phenomenon through
reflexivity and interactivity with the field.
The Process of Scientific Discovery
In some realm, there exists an establishment of knowledge, which is deemed necessary
to distribute amongst students. Pedagogues agree to understand the necessity
to distribute certain knowledge, and in doing so acknowledge an underlying indifference
in the student’s mind to establish a cognitive appreciation of the knowledge
that is disseminated.
In a program of understanding, it is deemed necessary to establish what is evident
in the structures of scientific discovery—that being the recognition of knowledge,
deliverance, and re-construction of patterns of knowledge—that give way to
questioning about their very existence and deliverance.
It is this parallel between critically observing and understanding the nature of
our scientific work in educational research and the process of its origination with
which I begin. As my work focuses on theoretical constructs and interpretations, if
one adheres to the above assumptions of teaching and learning, one might observe
S.J. Hegedus ()
School of Education, Public Policy and Civic Engagement, University of Massachusetts
Dartmouth, Dartmouth, USA
e-mail: shegedus@umassd.edu
B. Sriraman, L. English (eds.), Theories of Mathematics Education,
Advances in Mathematics Education,
DOI 10.1007/978-3-642-00742-2_36, © Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2010
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