This piece was originally published on the British Educational Research Association (BERA) blog.
I wrote this blog post in response to recurring conversations within mathematics education research about what counts as “good” or “rigorous” research. In particular, I was struck by how often quantitative approaches — and the kinds of certainty they promise — are treated as the default benchmark against which other forms of inquiry are judged.
The post reflects on the implications of this for the field, especially for research that seeks to understand learning as it is experienced rather than simply measured. Drawing on my own work as a researcher–practitioner, I argue for greater openness to alternative research perspectives, including phenomenological and interpretive approaches that attend to meaning, context, and lived experience.
At the time of writing, my concern was not with rejecting numerical or statistical work, but with questioning methodological dominance and the narrowing of what is seen as legitimate knowledge. Mathematics education, I suggest, is particularly vulnerable to this narrowing, given its close association with assessment, performance, and quantification.
Revisiting this piece now, it connects closely with later work on phenomenological approaches to learning, low-stakes pedagogies, and research that seeks to illuminate rather than conclude. The questions it raises — about evidence, rigour, and whose voices are heard — remain pressing.
→ Read the full post on the BERA blog:
Rethinking the numbers: promoting alternative research perspectives among mathematics education researchers
