Paradigms of inquiry and evaluation of mathematics curriculum and policy: Implications for the study of the use of information

The purpose of this study was to examine the influence of paradigms of inquiry on evaluations of mathematics education reform curriculum and policies over the past 27 years. In particular, this study investigated the influence of positivist and postpositivist paradigms of inquiry used in 34 evaluation research studies. It was hypothesized that the research methodologies present in evaluations of mathematics curriculum and policy published between 1975 and 1989 would tend to reflect the positivist paradigm of inquiry. It was also hypothesized that evaluations of mathematics curriculum and policy published between 1990 and 2002 would tend to reflect the postpositivist paradigm of inquiry.; To investigate these hypotheses, a mixed method research design using quantitative and qualitative content analyses was implemented. The quantitative content analysis entailed the development of a coding instrument that would capture the presence of the two paradigms of inquiry. Item to total score correlations provided evidence for the validity of the scores derived from the instrument. Inter-rater reliability coefficients showed that the instrument produced reliable data. The Fisher's Exact Tests and the ANOVAs indicated that there were no statistically significant differences in the influence of the positivist and postpositivist paradigms with respect to the early and late eras of publication. The qualitative content analysis approach employed pre-established categories to examine the evaluation studies. Sufficient differences that would warrant conclusions about the documents with regard to era of publication were indicated for two of nine categories with the late era being more postpositivist.; This study contributes both a coding instrument for helping to distinguish between positivistic and postpositivistic evaluation research and findings regarding the use of these approaches. The research indicated that positivistic approaches to evaluation of mathematics education reform curriculum have been more pervasive throughout the last 27 years than was expected. Since it can be argued that the content of evaluation studies is influenced by the paradigm of inquiry, this study has implications for the kind of information which has been available to educators and policymakers.