We Must Raise the Bar for Evidence in Education

By Carly Robinson & Todd Rogers

Those looking for what works in education will find no shortage of advice. Educators, hoping to improve student outcomes, eagerly embrace recommendations telling them to “Cater to each child’s learning style!” and “Give students awards for positive behaviors!” But many such intuitive, popular “best practices” may not, in fact, be what is best for students, even though their proponents stamp them “evidence based.”

Educators who prioritize evidence-based practices are fighting an uphill battle; the standards of proof for what constitutes “evidence” in schools—and education more widely—are often exceedingly low. For instance, the popular notions that we should be teaching to students’ learning styles or providing students with attendance awards were both rooted in observational evidence. Both practices have now been debunked, but over 75 percent of educators still endorse learning styles, and many schools say they use awards to recognize excellent student attendance.

We should not be surprised when people have incorrect notions on what research says works—education research is littered with published papers on a range of practical topics that either do not replicate previous findings or suggest massively inflated effects.

Educational policymakers and practitioners need to understand how study designs and research practices influence the reproducibility and credibility of a study’s findings. This is easier said than done, but there are a couple of initial indicators that suggest a research finding is “real” and worth implementing.