History of the Doctoral Degree Program at USF

The University of South Florida has had a Ph.D. in Curriculum and Instruction with an emphasis in Mathematics Education for many years.  In a report on doctoral programs in mathematics education (Reys & Kilpatrick, 2001), the university is listed as awarding 6 doctorates in mathematics education from 1980 through 1989.  Despite having a program with graduates, the loss of faculty led to a moratorium on new admissions to the program sometime in the late 1980s.  During this period, students interested in pursuing a Ph.D. in mathematics education had to approach the degree through the Interdisciplinary Track.  In fact, several students with interests in mathematics education began their program in this track and graduated after completing dissertations that clearly focused on issues in mathematics education.

In 1990, three new mathematics education faculty joined the department.  According to Dr. Donovan Lichtenberg, a longtime mathematics educator then on the faculty, these were the first new hires in mathematics education since 1972.  As a result of the addition of new faculty, the department reopened the program in the early 1990s and once again began admitting students into doctoral study in mathematics education.  

With the admittance of students into the program in the 1990s, the faculty worked to develop mathematics education courses specifically geared to the needs of students at this level.  Four specific courses were developed; students often completed the specialization in mathematics education with independent study or directed research:

      EDG 7931  Research Issues in Mathematics Education – This course was designed to provide a broad-based overview of important research areas within the mathematics education community.  The faculty believed that prospective higher education mathematics educators needed a solid grounding in not only areas of research of interest to the community but research methodologies used in mathematics education research.

      EDG 7931  Research Issues in Technology in Mathematics Education – The use of technology in teaching and learning mathematics has exploded in the last two decades with the growth of the microcomputer and the explosion of hand-held technologies such as graphing calculators.  Exploring research in this area was deemed crucial to prospective educators.

      EDG 7931  Assessment Issues in Mathematics Education – In the past decade, assessment has played an increasingly important role in education and assessment of mathematics achievement is an area that regularly receives attention.  Hence, the faculty believed that doctoral students should be aware of issues involved in assessing mathematics as well as considering how the reform movement has recommended adjusting our assessment practices.

      EDG 7931  Preparing Mathematics Teachers K-12 – Because mathematics educators at many institutions are responsible for preparing prospective teachers of mathematics at all grades K-12, the faculty deemed it important to include a course that would discuss a range of issues involved in preparing teachers of mathematics.

Several new students applied for admission during the 2001-2002 academic year and several other students had expressed interest in the program and had taken a few courses as special students.  The mathematics education faculty used this opportunity to revisit the specialization courses required of students and made a couple of changes.  In their place, we decided to add the following two courses to the four doctoral level specialization courses mentioned earlier.

      EDG 7931  Curriculum History and Research in Mathematics Education – This course was offered for the first time in Fall 2002.  It focused on current trends and issues in mathematics education that pertain to curriculum.  It also focused on historical aspects of mathematics education.  The faculty felt strongly that prospective mathematics educators at the higher-education level should have some grounding in the history of the field, separate from general curriculum issues that they would encounter in the required general curriculum course.

      EDG 7931  Designing Mathematics Education Research – This course was designed to be the final course in the specialization area.  With the mathematics education background that students would have at this point, the faculty felt that such a course could focus on varied research designs in mathematics education for different types of research.  This course would be able to help students start formulating a research question and begin to make some efforts toward a proposal so that students would continue to make progress after completing qualifying exams.

In 2002-2003, the various programs in the Department of Secondary Education began working on revising the Ph.D. to provide a sense of community among doctoral students in the department who had different discipline emphases. As a result of those changes, the department developed a new track within Curriculum and Instruction, entitled Teaching and Learning in the Content Area: (specialization). This new program, as outlined in the Course Availability table, is the program that mathematics education plans to offer beginning in Fall 2004.

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