The authors searched the ERIC and PsycINFO databases for K-12 rural education research studies conducted in the United States and published in journal articles between 1991 and summer 2003. This search was conducted in order to identify topics that appear in the rural education research literature and determine the quality of this research. Only…

Using PISA 2000 data, this article examines cross-national variation in rural mathematics achievement among 15-year-olds in 24 industrialized nations. Rural mathematics scores were significantly lower than scores in urban and medium-size communities in 14 of 24 countries. However, patterns were complex. Most commonly, a linear relationship…

Very little empirical research has examined mathematics education in rural schools and communities. A modest nonresearch literature does exist, however, and this study analyzed this literature. We found 3 themes describing the prescriptions given to rural educators: (a) mathematics education in rural schools needs to be fixed; (b) good things…

An adequate research base for mathematics learning and teaching in rural areas does not exist. According to Silver (2001), mathematics education research has virtually ignored rural context, even though approximately one third of the nation's population lives in rural areas. Mathematics education and rural education researchers seem to have little…

Contextualized in relationship to other case studies about rural districts that have experienced population growth and decline as well as in relationship to the small sociological literature on "boom towns," this study considered the dynamics that seem to be interfering with one previously rural and now suburbanizing district's ability to address…

To assess the status and the trends of subject matters investigated and research methods/designs and data analysis procedures employed by educational researchers, this study surveyed articles published by the "American Educational Research Journal (AERJ)," "Journal of Experimental Education (JEE)" and "Journal of Educational Research (JER)" from…

E-technology as a basis of research is now being more widely considered as potential respondents can be drawn from an ever widening audience. Early work by others has shown that many respondents are keen to use the medium and that response rates are generally higher than by conventional approaches. This article summarizes the experience of…

Children of 10-11 years of age were interviewed while undertaking a range of mathematic problems, most of which embedded mathematical operations in textually represented realistic settings. One problem, concerning a lift moving people in the morning rush, comprised a division-with-remainder problem in which children are required, conventionally,…

Projects on science and mathematics education research supported by the National Science Foundation (US government) rarely employ a single method of study. Studies of educational practices that use experimental design are very rare. The most common research method is the case study method and the second most common is some form of experimental…

This paper is about teaching and learning across the so-called quantitative-qualitative divide in light of current debates in the US about the definition and quality of educational research. It draws on the author's research and teaching experiences, her role in the redesign of qualitative methods coursework and participation in a school-wide…

In the US debate over science-based educational research, experimentation is again coming to the fore as ideal for establishing an evidence base of what works in educational interventions thus contributing to the climate of accountability in educational research and practice. Mixed methods research is being positioned in this discussion as a…

A mixed method approach to educational and social inquiry is presented as an important counterpoint to the contemporary debate about what constitutes valid, rigorous, and "scientific" research. By welcoming all legitimate methodological traditions, mixed method inquiry meaningfully engages with difference and thus offers some generative potential…

Mathematics educators frequently recommend that students use strategies for measurement estimation, such as the reference point or benchmark strategy; however, little is known about the effects of using this strategy on estimation accuracy or representations of standard measurement units. One reason for the paucity of research in this area is that…

In this study we investigated above-average high school calculus students from Japan and the United States in order to determine any differences in their conceptual understanding of calculus and their ability to use algebra to solve traditional calculus problems. We examined and interviewed 18 Calculus BC students in the United States and 26…

Students' strategies for solving long division problems under a realistic mathematics approach (RME) at Dutch primary schools were categorized in two ways: (a) according to the level of how students created multiples of the divisor (chunking) to be subtracted from the dividend; and (b) according to their use, or nonuse, of schematic notation.…