On the role of psychologists in the international New Math movement

The birth of the New Math movement in Europe is closely linked to the work of Bourbaki in pure mathematics, but it was the Swiss psychologist Jean Piaget who provided the psychological justification by assuming a link between the structures of modern mathematics and the structures of children's cognitive development. In the US, Jerome Bruner played an analogous role by providing Edward G. Begle's School Mathematics Study Group a psychological justification for extending its action to the primary level. However, not all psychologists of the 1950s and 1960s had unconditional faith in the New Math reform. Already at Royaumont, William D. Wall, a leading British psychologist and educationalist, reproached the reformers for basing their actions on unverified opinion rather than careful psycho-pedagogical research. Methodological criticism was also voiced by the Belgian school psychologist Fernand Hotyat, but the reformers claimed they had no alternative.