Around the world, mathematics education was becoming a university discipline in many countries as teacher education became more professionalized, career patterns like those of the established discipline began to emerge, the field began to reflect on its own activity, and communication among its members improved (Schubring, 1983). Research in mathematics education seemed poised to become the experimental science Begle and others envisioned. Yet as the 1970s ended, increasing doubts were being expressed about the contribution research was making to the educational process, and some people eventually began to wonder whether educational research could become a science at all.