Maybe it’s the fast-paced nature of social media, with limited word counts, or maybe it is the oppositional nature of discourse now, but I find clarity lacking in many of the discussions around education that happen online.

And when I ask for clarity - most often, a definition of the terminology being used - it’s not usually welcome.

For example, accusations fly of deflecting away from the central argument when, actually, it’s an effort to try to prevent us all speaking past each other by checking we are all talking about the same thing.

A good example is the word “skill”. Confusion here is probably partly caused by the unhelpful ways in which some organisations use the term.

I agree that some discussions about “21st-century skills” are accompanied by hyperbole and fads, but that does not mean use of the word “skill” in every context should be taken in those hyperbolic terms.

Often, though, that is what happens on one side of the argument, whereas the person on the other side is talking about “skill” in its more mundane, workmanlike, catch-all terminology. Both sides think the other is using the definition that they are using themselves, and it’s painful to watch.

Or take the word “differentiation” : in a recent review of work published between 1999 and 2019, researchers concluded that “there are now so many misperceptions and definitional inconsistencies that it is difficult to know what is being enacted in the name of differentiation”.

Meanwhile, an article by Scott Lilienfeld and colleagues highlights 50 examples of frequently confused term-pairs in psychology, many of which we see causing trouble in education debates. Crossed wires over terms such as “working memory” and “short-term memory”, and “testing” and “assessment” are hugely prevalent.

For some, any ambiguity means we should not use those terms at all, ensuring we don’t risk unnecessary arguments. I don’t agree with such an extreme position: it is easy enough to simply ask what terms mean. And, actually, the process of clarifying can itself be the basis for an important and fruitful debate. Calling for clarity of terms is not obfuscation, it’s the hallmark of scientific progress.

To be clear, this is not a plea for simplification: clarity of what we mean does not entail reducing definitions to banality. It just means we should probably make sure we agree what we are talking about before we start quote-tweeting each other.

Christian Bokhove is associate professor in maths education at the University of Southampton

This article originally appeared in the 5 February 2021 issue under the headline “Are we talking about the same thing?”