Thursday, January 1, 2015

I'm not happy with the way I'm referred to...

Some time ago, Google Scholar noted that there was a reference to me in a new paper, The Need for the Inclusion of History of Mathematics into Secondary School Curriculum: Perceptions of Mathematics Teachers by Habila Elisha Zuya. It is published in the journal International Journal for Innovation Education and Research (IJIER), a journal that is peer-reviewed, but states that "The review process takes maximum two weeks." Hm...

The article refers to me in this way:

A number of researchers have pointed out that teachers' interest in mathematics increased when introduced to the history of mathematics (e.g. Smestad, 2009; Siu, 2004; Phillippou & Chritou, 1998; Stander, 1989). However, these researchers maintained that teachers found no interest in using the history of mathematics within the curriculum.
I do not think my data can be used to claim that "teachers' interest in mathematics increased when introduced to the history of mathematics" or that I claim that in the article. Neither can my article be used to suggest that "teachers found no interest in using the history of mathematics within the curriculum". Of course, I may be wrong, maybe indeed my article does suggest something else than what I intended. But I am more tempted to believe that this is a case of trying to fit too many references into too short a paper, so that the actual point of view of each reference is not retained.

I just wanted to get it off my heart. I don't think the journal would be interested in publishing a note to this effect, at least not without me paying for the privilege...