US teachers believe that they are implementing current reform ideas in their classrooms. When asked specifically to evaluate their videotaped lesson, almost three-fourths of the American teachers rated it as reasonably in accord with current ideas about the teaching and learning of mathematics. They were more than twice as likely to respond this way than either the Japanese or the German teachers. Teachers who said that the videotaped lesson was in accord with current ideas about the teaching and learning of mathematics were asked to justify their responses. Although the range and variety of responses to this question were great, the vast majority of American teachers’ responses pertained to surface features, such as the use of manipulatives or cooperative groups, rather than to the deeper characteristics of instruction, such as the depth of understanding developed by their students.

In fact, the findings of the video study suggest that written reports which are disseminated to teachers may have little impact on practices in the classroom. One reason for this may be that teachers may not have widely shared understandings of what such terms as "problem solving" really mean, leading to idiosyncratic interpretations in the classroom.Video examples of high quality instruction tied to descriptions of what quality instruction should look like may help, in the future, to address this problem.