Alan Bell contributes to all aspects of the design and development work of the MARS team, in particular the domain frameworks for classifying tasks and the studies of student performance. His previous research interests have concerned the nature of mathematical activity, and ways of encouraging richer mathematical activities in the classroom. Another line of research has been on the identification of student misconceptions in particular mathematical topics, and on designing general teaching approaches to deal with these common psychological obstacles.

His publications include two books on mathematics for college students, an innovative problem-based course for Grades 6-7 and about 80 papers in journals. He wrote the Review of Research on Mathematical Education for the UK Cockcroft committee whose report Mathematics Counts has been widely influential. He has lectured on these topics by invitation in many countries.