These papers were commissioned for the Committee on the Status, Contributions, and Future Directions of Discipline-Based Education Research through support from the National Science Foundation. These papers were presented at committee meetings between June 2010 and July 2011. Opinions and statements included in the paper are solely those of the individual author, and are not necessarily adopted or endorsed or verified as accurate by the Board on Science Education or the National Academy of Sciences, including the National Academy of Engineering, Institute of Medicine, or National Research Council.