Cognitive neuroscience meets mathematics education: It takes two to Tango

Against the background of the organization of an EARLI Advanced Study Colloquium on Cognitive Neuroscience Meets Mathematics Education, we argued that the interdisciplinary field of neuroscience and education should be conceived as a two-way street with multiple bi-directional interactions between educational research and cognitive neuroscience (De Smedt et al., 2010a). In his response to our paper, Turner (2011) provided a critical examination of the possible connections between educational research and neuroscience and argued that there is currently a very unbalanced one-way exchange and dominance of cognitive neuroscience rather than a two-way street between neuroscience and education, if, at all, such a two-way street can be possible. This unbalanced exchange arises because the limitations of neuroimaging research are not always clearly articulated and because the findings that it generates are often taken for granted and not open to critical evaluation, particularly not by educational researchers. In the enthusiasm for promoting connections between neuroscience and education, behavioral studies are undervalued and neuroscience is often credited for data that are actually obtained by means of behavioral studies. We appreciate Turner’s (2011) efforts to undertake this critical examination, especially because, as also highlighted by the author, a critical interrogation of cognitive neuroscience from within the field of education is currently missing. Without doubt, neuroimaging research has its limitations, most of which are highly similar to any quantitative research method, as we will discuss further below. The important role of behavioral studies needs to be emphasized and it is inappropriate to assume that the results of one approach, such as cognitive neuroscience, are more informative or valued than the results of any other studies of that behavior. The author proposes that if the field of neuroscience and education wants to move forward, a critical acknowledgement of the strengths and weaknesses of each subfield and mutual respect for both research traditions, that (might) have distinct philosophical backgrounds, are crucial. This aim for a balanced and complementary relationship represents exactly what we wanted to highlight with the idea of a two-way street scenario between neuroscience and education (De Smedt et al., 2010a). The connection between both disciplines should not be limited to a one-way street view in which findings from cognitive neuroscience are applied to educational theory. This would be the imbalance that Turner’s (2011) is pointing to, where one of both partners is dominant. Clearly, the two-way street scenario is not something that has been achieved so far. Educational researchers and cognitive neuroscientists should understand each other more fully than is currently the case, a challenge for the future in which the role of education of researchers both in education and in cognitive neuroscience will be fundamental.