Maths + Movement: Methodological Considerations for Mathematics Teacher Educators as Action Researchers

This chapter aims to explore the methodological considerations, tensions, challenges and constraints for mathematics teacher educators as action researchers within a large-scale project designed by colleagues from different fields. Here, with reference to records of key interactions during a planning workshop, we will examine the conversations that took place as we planned to become action researchers within a core mathematics education course; agreed upon data collection opportunities and activities; and grappled with issues of fidelity, reliability and validity. In particular, we will share our divergent views of action research and how these amplified various competing priorities for the first three authors, who were set to grapple with identities and roles as mathematics content specialists, advocates for the discipline of mathematics, mathematics educators, and educational researchers. We argue that it was only through a commitment to expose and challenge each other’s thinking that the authoring team came to understand each other’s philosophical and epistemological positions, priorities and aims related to the professional learning and growth of pre-service teachers and the teaching and learning of primary school students.