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The research improved the design and distribution of educational tests and software, textbooks, teaching materials, qualifications, and associated guides and research briefings in mathematics education. The MaLT project test papers have achieved sales of 350,000, with 382 interactive software versions. Some 27,000 certifications have been awarded using the Free Standing Mathematics qualifications. Research has influenced courses designed to aid transition into STEM in higher education, especially 13 programmes in seven universities engaged in a HE STEM funded mathematical modelling project.
Research conducted between 1997 and 2013 at Loughborough University helped to tackle the `mathematics problem': a significant challenge for the entire UK Higher Education (HE) sector. Significant impact during the assessment period has arisen from the development of Mathematics Support Centres at UK and international Higher Education Institutions (HEIs), based on the model developed at Loughborough University, and from an online resource, mathcentre. A collaborative network of practitioners has facilitated the dissemination of the `Loughborough Model', and resulted in changes in institutional policy and practice. Direct beneficiaries have been teaching and support staff in HEIs and students across a broad range of disciplines.
"Helping Engineers Learn Mathematics" (HELM) was a sector-wide developmental research project originating at Loughborough University. It impacted on:
a) Teacher awareness and understanding: in a climate of reluctant engagement and poor performance when undergraduate engineering students learn mathematics, the project raised awareness of research-based pedagogic approaches.
b) Teaching and learning practice: new modes of teaching and learning emerged (using HELM workbooks and CAA data banks) which were enthusiastically adopted across the sector.
c) Engineering education policy: policy-makers could see the value of acquiring HELM materials for staff and students to use, with or without adaptation.
The MacTutor History of Mathematics Web Archive at the University of St Andrews is one of the most accessed resources worldwide for mathematics and its history. The archive includes detailed biographies of 2740 mathematicians and over 2000 other pages of essays on specific topics and supporting material, presented in a readily searchable form which engages and informs. It has had great influence on popularising and communicating the essence and importance of mathematics, inspiring a broad audience across the world, as well as being a vast educational resource. The site has sustained an average of two million hits per week over the last six years. It has been the basis for college courses worldwide and numerous student and school projects on mathematics and its history, and it has served as a seminal resource for many popular science, reference, and academic books, TV and radio broadcasts and lectures. The Archive continues to grow, with new material continually being researched and added.
Research on cognitive acceleration at King's has helped change pedagogy in science and mathematics education in the UK and around the world. Rooted in the cognitive psychology of Jean Piaget and Lev Vygotsky, cognitive acceleration is a research-based teaching approach that enables teachers to challenge how students think and to encourage metacognition. This approach has been shown to have substantial, positive effects on students' cognitive development and hence on their academic achievement. As a result, schools around the world have been attracted to the approach and now teach using cognitive acceleration methods in science and mathematics. In the UK cognitive acceleration is also used in English teaching.
A design research programme in mathematics education by The University of Nottingham has been taken up by two powerful US change agents — the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and the National Council of Supervisors of Mathematics — as a key element in their strategies to improve the quality of teaching and learning in secondary mathematics classrooms across the US.
Beginning with small-scale design research on diagnostic teaching in mathematics, effective principles for the design of lessons were developed to enable teachers to adapt to students' learning needs. These principles were then engineered into robust products and processes through systematic, closely observed classroom trials.
The first of the two studies described here helped to persuade the coalition government that sufficient loans and grants needed to be available from autumn 2012 to ensure that higher tuition fees did not deter students from disadvantaged backgrounds from pursuing a university degree. The second study influenced the national debate on widening participation in higher education and encouraged policy-makers to recognise the importance of providing school students with improved information, advice and guidance on how to reach university. It triggered the launch of a successful website that has enabled teenagers to make more informed choices about HE.
Research by the University of Edinburgh (1997 to 2006, but part of a continuing programme of work) on socio-economic inequalities in education and the impact of educational reform has had an impact on public policy debates, mainly in Scotland. The significance of the impact is seen in the raised profile of socio-economic inequalities in policy agendas and the extent to which it has informed the design of policy responses and influenced policy debates. It has played an important role in holding the public policy process to account, by providing the main independent evidence base on the actual and potential contribution of policy. Its reach has extended to include policy-makers and participants in public debates about education and, indirectly, pupils and students.
Educational performance tables — some comparing countries as well as schools — have come to assume great importance. They now influence not only parents' school choices but some national education policies. Tables can, however, mislead as well as enlighten. The three studies featured here demonstrate this and help to ensure that the public will be better informed in future. Two played a key role in convincing the government that it should revise England's school performance tables. The third gave civil servants and politicians good reason to be more circumspect about how they publicly interpret international pupil performance data.
The IOE researchers featured in this case study have had a major and sustained impact on education in the Indian sub-continent. Geeta Kingdon has shaped UK government policy on educational aid to India. She has also helped to ensure that millions of poor children in Uttar Pradesh — India's most populous state — qualify for free places in private schools. Angela Little's work in Sri Lanka has raised the profile of primary education, which has been hampered by low status and inadequate funding. She has also done much to improve the life chances of the country's disadvantaged children — particularly those growing up on tea plantations.