Of the many writers proposing changes in education, some pay homage to “evidence-informed,” “evidence-based,” “research-backed,” and other similar terms to verify their recommendations. Too few clearly specify what the terms mean. In this article, I explain what sorts of evidence provides the most compelling base for instruction.
Please do not stop reading now, because you fear that this is series of posts is going to be rife with equations, statistics, and arcane research terminology. That is not where the series goes. It will be much plainer than the last “sadistics” class you sat through.
This post—and associated posts—is based on a fairly simple idea, but a gigantically important idea: Scientific research allows us to compare alternative teaching methods, practices, and procedures and determine objectively which ones produce more (or less!) beneficial outcomes for students.
