The Math Ed Majors: Golf Edition (Part II)

Having, in Part I, introduced the Math Ed Majors, the purpose of this article is to introduce a novel, unconventional, professional-golf-based author productivity index for those publishing their research and scholarship in the field of mathematics education. Once again, I look to men’s professional golf, and men’s major championships; however, this time, I focus on the perspective of the golfers and their major accomplishments. A discussion of one’s major count (the total number of major golf championships won by an individual), the grand slam (a term for winning all of golf’s major championships in one year), and variants to the grand slam (e.g., Career Grand Slam, Tiger Slam) in the world of professional golf reveals, for the world of mathematics education, the Math Ed Majors Index, which is denoted the MEM-Index in short. The MEM-Index (a count of the total number of articles published in the Math Ed Majors), then, provides a new lens with which to look at publication count, the mathematics education version of the grand slam, career grand slam, and its variants, which are based on authorship order (e.g., Solo Author or Any Author Slam), coauthors (e.g., Grand Student or PostDoc Slam), material published (e.g., Book Review or Research Paper Slam), and more. Ultimately, the MEM-Index, especially when combined with the many different versions of the Career Grand Slam, provides a new manner with which to frame success, in terms of publications and publication count, in the field of mathematics education.