ABSTRACT
The domain of mathematics learning and teaching is arguably the clearest example of the subject matter orientation in research on learning and instruction. Particularly in the 1980s and 1990s, this domain has produced a vast body of investigations, reviewed and synthesized in the Handbook of Research on Mathematics Teaching and Learning (Grouws, 1992). A few years earlier, the Research Agenda for Mathematics Education project (J. Sowder, 1989), initiated by the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics, generated conferences (in 1987) and subsequent edited volumes relating to four major themes, namely teaching and assessing problem solving (Charles & Silver, 1988), effective mathematics teaching (Grouws & Cooney, 1988), the learning and teaching of algebra (Wagner & Kieran, 1988), and middle school number concepts (Behr & Hiebert, 1988). More internationally balanced overviews are proVided in Mathematics and Cognition, the research synthesis of the International Group for the Psychology of Mathematics Education (Nesher & Kilpatrick, 1990) and in the forthcoming International Handbook of Mathematics Education (Bishop, in press) and a book based on a Working Group at the 7th International Congress of Mathematical Education, Theories of Mathematical Learning (Steffe, Nesher, Cobb, Goldin, & Greer, in press).
