Evidenced-Based Learning

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Arizona Department of Education  provides a variety of resources, including Evidence for ESSA,  to support the identification of evidence based practices and programs to support your school and district transformation. 

Access:  Arizona’s Evidence-Based Practices, Strategies, Programs, and Intervention Articles and Resources

The Blueprints for Healthy Youth Development mission is to provide a comprehensive registry of scientifically proven and scalable interventions that prevent or reduce the likelihood of antisocial behavior and promote a healthy course of youth development and adult maturity. We also advocate for evidence-based interventions locally and nationally and produce publications on the importance of adopting high-scientific standards when evaluating what works in social and crime prevention interventions.

Blueprints promotes only those interventions with the strongest scientific support.

105 programs have been reviewed with 19 meeting “Model & Model Plus” and 86 are considered Promising.

At Blueprints, we identify, recommend, and disseminate programs for youth, families and communities that, based on scientific evaluations, have strong evidence of effectiveness. Those programs are rated as either Promising, Model or Model Plus. When searching our registry of programs, each result will indicate the program rating.

Access:  Blueprints for Healthy Youth Development – Providing a Registry of Experimentally Proven Programs

This web site was created by the Center for Research and Reform in Education at Johns Hopkins University, in collaboration with a distinguished Technical Work Group.  They have reviews of programs addressing reading, attendance, science (coming soon), writing (coming soon) , math, and social emotional.

Access:  Evidence for ESSA

ICSEI is a global community collaborating for enhanced quality, equity, and excellence in education, related to educational and school effectiveness and improvement

PURPOSE

ICSEI’s purpose is to influence the quality of education by providing an international forum for researchers, policy makers, and practitioners. Our community comes together to:

  • critically engage with new ideas
  • conduct and promote research
  • develop knowledge, policies, and practices
  • innovate as world-class leaders in enhancing the quality and equity of education for all people around the world
  • develop ideas, knowledge and research about the field, and communicate this in the public domain

ICSEI is an international community that represents and reaches policy makers, practitioners and researchers in over 80 countries. This allows different voices, different points of view and different perspectives to emerge. This inclusivity also ensures that ICSEI is a learning community which fosters debate, discussion and disagreement to promote new understanding and new knowledge.

Access:  International Congress for School Effectiveness and Improvement (ICSEI)

 

The American Rescue Plan Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief (ARP ESSER or ESSER III) Fund includes several evidence-based requirements. The fund requires districts to:


Reserve a minimum of 20% of funds to address unfinished learning (federally referred to as "learning loss") caused by the COVID-19 pandemic through the implementation of evidence-based interventions;
Ensure selected interventions respond to students social, emotional, and academic needs;
Ensure selected interventions address the disproportionate impact of COVID-19 on underrepresented students; and
Use evidence-based practices (EBPs) when the remaining 80% is used to address unfinished learning or to provide mental health services and supports.

The reviewed EBPs and critical learning concepts (CLCs) meet the ESSER III requirements for evidence-based and are all considered practices with Tier 1 (i.e., strong) evidence according to the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) levels of evidence document.

Access:  Iowa Department of Education – Reviewed Evidence-Based Practices and Critical Learning Concepts

The purpose of this document is to provide nationally published, peer-reviewed clearinghouses of evidence-based programs (EBPs) to schools. It is a source of clearinghouses that met the Iowa Department of Education’s (Department) established criteria for EBPs that address unfinished learning (federally referred to as “learning loss”) caused by the COVID-19 pandemic and respond to students’ social, emotional, mental health, and academic needs, as detailed by the American Rescue Plan Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief (ESSER III or ARP ESSER) and Evidence-Based Interventions guidance, the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA), and the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA)

Access:  Iowa Department of Education – Reviewed List of Nationally Peer-Reviewed Clearinghouses of Evidence-Based Interventions

These research summaries from Vanderbilt University’s IRIS Center, covering instructional strategies and interventions, offer information that includes level of effectiveness as well as the age groups for which a given strategy or intervention is designed. Links to the original reports are also provided for those who might wish to explore further.

Access:  IRIS Center’s Evidence-Based Practice Summaries

This tools chart presents information about academic (e.g., reading, math) intervention programs. The following four tabs include information and ratings on the technical rigor of the studies:

Quality of Design & Results

Quality of Other Indicators

Intensity

Additional Research

Access: National Center on Intensive Intervention – Academic Tools Chart

This tools chart presents information about behavioral intervention programs. The following four tabs include information and ratings on the technical rigor of the studies

  • Quality of Design & Results
  • Quality of Other Indicators
  • Program Information
  • Additional Research

Access:  National Center on Intensive Intervention – Behavioral Tools Chart

In building the research base for this book, the authors intentionally searched for studies of interventions delivered to historically disadvantaged student groups, including students of color, students in poverty, emergent bilingual students, and those with low prior levels of achievement. 

They identified 14 teaching strategies that should be the focus of any teacher's professional growth - strategies that are good for all students and critical for some.

Access:  The New Classroom Instruction That Works - Detailed Summaries of Each Study

Whether you are looking for research-based articles, doctoral dissertations, or studies, this is the largest database of educational research in the world.

Access:  Sage Journals - Your Gateway to World-Class Research Journals

This exclusive resource for educators includes time-tested strategies for addressing challenging behaviors, preventing disruptions, and meeting students where they are, including:

  • 4 Keys for Successful Student Management
  • 6 Ways to Maximize Direct Instruction Time
  • 6 Preventive Measures for Trauma-Sensitive Behavior Management
  • 4 Steps to Better Emotional Self-Regulation

Access:  A School-wide Approach to Managing Student Behavior

Dr. Richard DuFour’s white paper, ESSA: An Opportunity for American Education. Within its pages, Dr. DuFour examines ESSA, breaks down the results of previous reforms, and shares specific recommendations for how to ensure educators and students succeed.

Access:  Solution Tree’s White Paper:  ESSA – An Opportunity for American Education

Visit Vanderbilt University web-based resources on high-leverage practices, including their new video series on high-leverage practices.

Access:  Special-Education – High-Leverage Practices

The Council for Exceptional Children (CEC) provides high-leverage practices for Birth-5 as well as K-12.  They also have a glossary of terms, webinars, videos, and building knowledge/going deeper/practicing HLPs. (Excellent Resource)

Access:  Special Education – High-Leverage Practices for Students with Disabilities

This document provides information about resources, strategies, and evidence-based practices that (while not required by law) can help States, LEAs, schools, early childhood programs, educators, and families in their efforts to meet IDEA requirements and, in doing so, improve outcomes for children with disabilities.

Access:  Special Education:  Positive, Proactive Approaches to Supporting Children with Disabilities:  A Guide for Stakeholders (July 19, 2022)

Vanderbilt University defines evidence-based practices.

Access:  Special Education – What Are Evidence-Based Practices?

Dr. Guskey’s work is dedicated to helping teachers and school leaders use quality educational research to help all of their students learn well and gain the many valuable benefits of that success. To learn more about Dr. Guskey’s work, visit http://tguskey.com, follow him on Twitter @tguskey, or contact him through email at guskey@uky.edu.

Access:  Thomas R. Guskey - Learning-Grading-Leadership

The University of Nebraska – Lincoln shares this summary of the evidence-based teaching strategies.

Access:  Top 10 Evidence-Based Teaching Strategies

Educators search for high-quality research for many reasons, and the What Works Clearinghouse (WWC) can be a valuable tool for locating studies that meet the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) requirements.
 

Educators search for high-quality research and evidence-based interventions
to strengthen grant applications, to support comprehensive and targeted schools,
or to implement new programming in their schools. ESSA evidence tiers are
designed to ensure that states, districts, and schools can identify programs,
practices, products, and policies that work across various populations.

Access:  Using the What Works Clearinghouse to Find ESSA Tiers of Evidence

EL’s issue on “Feedback for Learning” (Vol. 70/1) brings together renowned experts in this field: Grant Wiggins, John Hattie, Susan M. Brookhart, Dylan William and many more. The educators and researchers share valuable insights about what feedback is (and isn’t) and how feedback works to improve learning. As a quick takeaway EL has put together this handy infographic with an overview of seven things to remember about feedback. You can download the infograpic at www.ascd.org (PDF).

Access:  Visibile Learning – Feedback

Throughout his Visible Learning journey John Hattie has used the “barometer” to visualize the effect size of an influence on student achievement. It has also also been on the cover of several Visible Learning books. The barometer scale is divided by the hinge point d = 0.4, which represents according to Hattie the mean of all effect sizes in the underlying meta-studies. Hatties “barometer of influence” goes from red (negative effects), to yellow (developmental effects), to green (teacher effects) and finally over the hinge point 0.4 to the blue zone (desired effects).

Access:  Visible Learning – Hattie’s Barometer of influence – Infographic

John Hattie developed a way of synthesizing various influences in different meta-analyses according to their effect size (Cohen’s d). In his ground-breaking study “Visible Learning” he ranked 138 influences that are related to learning outcomes from very positive effects to very negative effects. Hattie found that the average effect size of all the interventions he studied was 0.40. Therefore he decided to judge the success of influences relative to this ‘hinge point’, in order to find an answer to the question “What works best in education?”

Originally, Hattie studied six areas that contribute to learning: the student, the home, the school, the curricula, the teacher, and teaching and learning approaches. (The updated list also includes the classroom.) But Hattie did not only provide a list of the relative effects of different influences on student achievement. He also tells the story underlying the data. He found that the key to making a difference was making teaching and learning visible. He further explained this story in his book “Visible learning for teachers“.

John Hattie updated his list of 138 effects to 150 effects in Visible Learning for Teachers (2011), and more recently to a list of 195 effects in The Applicability of Visible Learning to Higher Education (2015). His research is now based on nearly 1200 meta-analyses – up from the 800 when Visible Learning came out in 2009. According to Hattie the story underlying the data has hardly changed over time even though some effect sizes were updated and we have some new entries at the top, at the middle, and at the end of the list.

Access:  Visible Learning - Hattie Ranking: 252 Influences and Effect Sizes Related To Student Achievement

Professor John Hattie is a researcher in education. His research interests include performance indicators, models of measurement and evaluation of teaching and learning. John Hattie became known to a wider public with his two books Visible Learning and Visible Learning for teachers. Visible Learning is a synthesis of more than 800 meta-studies covering more than 80 million students.  According to John Hattie Visible Learning is the result of 15 years of research about what works best for learning in schools. TES once called him “possibly the world’s most influential education academic”.

John Hattie has been Director of the Melbourne Educational Research Institute at the University of Melbourne, Australia, since March 2011. Before, he was Project Director of asTTle and Professor of Education at the University of Auckland, New Zealand. He holds a PhD from the University of Toronto, Canada. You can find a full CV of Professor John Hattie (PDF) at the website of the University of Auckland.

Access: Visible Learning – John Hattie

When Professor John Hattie first began his research around performance indicators and evaluation in education, he had one simple question: which variables have the greatest impact on student achievement?

The Visible Learning® research base is the culmination of his quest over the past 25 years to answer this question and represents more than 1,850 meta-analyses comprising more than 108,000 studies involving more than 300 million students around the world.

Through the Visible Learning research, John Hattie has identified more than 320 factors that influence student achievement. He then set about calculating a score or "effect size" for each, according to its bearing on student achievement. The average effect size of these 320 factors was 0.4, a marker that can be shown to represents an (average) year's growth per year of schooling for a student. Any factor that has an effect size above 0.4 has an even greater positive effect on student learning.

Each of these factors have been categorized into one of nine domains

  • StudentFactors relating to background, beliefs, and physical influences
  • HomeFactors relating to family resources, structure, and environment
  • SchoolFactors related to school-type, pre-school, school composition, and leadership
  • ClassroomFactors related to class composition, giftedness, and classroom influences
  • TeacherFactors relating to teacher attributes, teacher-student interactions, and teacher education
  • CurriculaFactors related to various curricula programs
  • Student Learning StrategiesFactors relating to self-regulation, student perspectives, and learning strategies
  • Teaching StrategiesFactors relating to learning intentions, success criteria, feedback, and teaching strategies
  • Technology, School, and Out-Of-School StrategiesFactors relating to technology, school-wide methods, and out of school learning

Access:  Visible Learning MetaX

A practice guide is a publication that presents recommendations for educators to address challenges in their classrooms and schools. They are based on reviews of research, the experiences of practitioners, and the expert opinions of a panel of nationally recognized experts.

All of the WWC Practice Guides are listed in chronological order, by date of release.

Excellent resource!!!

Access:  What Works Clearinghouse -  Practice Guides

This page was last updated: 6/21/24