Explore the evidence
9 of 88 decisions · clear everything
Executive function trains like a task, not like a capacity: gains are real, narrow, and gone at follow-up, EF curricula are null under independent trial, and the latent construct is ~100% heritable.
no effectconf: highgc: lowCan executive function be trained, and does it transfer to learning? · character · ages 4–18
Selective CTE high schools raise male graduation 8-10pp and early-career earnings 17-35% on lottery and cutoff designs; test scores, degrees, and every outcome for girls are flat.
moderate supportconf: mediumgc: lowDo career and technical education tracks help students — and which students? · practical · ages 14–18
Immersion costs nothing in English and buys a little — a lottery puts English reading 0.13-0.22 SD ahead by grades 5 and 8 — but no lottery has ever measured how much of the second language students actually learn.
moderate supportconf: mediumgc: lowDoes dual-language immersion work, and is the gain in the second language or in English? · foreign-language · ages 4–18
Sentence combining improves writing where grammar teaching fails — the same meta-analyses score them +0.50 and −0.32.
moderate supportconf: mediumgc: lowDoes sentence combining improve writing? · writing · ages 5–18
Capitalisation and punctuation move when directly taught and directly measured, and don't move when embedded in writing programmes. A teachable subject, not a writing lever.
mixedconf: mediumgc: mediumCan capitalisation, punctuation and usage be taught directly as their own subject? · writing · ages 5–18
Explicit form-focused teaching beats pure exposure, so the archive's negative verdict on L1 grammar does NOT transfer — but the effects are measured on the taught forms, immediately, mostly on adults.
mixedconf: mediumgc: lowComprehensible input or explicit grammar teaching — which builds a second language? · foreign-language · ages 4–18
Document-based instruction reliably improves the sourcing and argument tasks it teaches (g ≈ 0.42) and, in the two best-identified trials, moves neither standardized reading nor history knowledge.
mixedconf: mediumgc: lowDoes document-based source work move history knowledge, reading comprehension, or neither? · history-civics · ages 8–18
Not at school: the largest randomised trials find nothing on reading, maths or cognition. A small effect on laboratory executive-function tasks is contested, may be real at ~0.2 SD, and is end-of-treatment only.
mixedconf: mediumgc: mediumDoes learning music make children smarter or better at school? · music · ages 4–16
Conceptual-change teaching reliably moves the test and nothing shows it removes the intuition. Corrected for design and publication bias, a taught unit is g≈0.64 and a refutation text g≈0.28.
mixedconf: mediumgc: lowScience misconceptions and conceptual change — can naive intuitions be taught away? · science · ages 6–18
- Algebra timing — acceleration mandates, delay mandates, and readiness-based placement
- Does arts education raise academic achievement?
- Background knowledge and vocabulary as drivers of reading comprehension
- Does working-memory or brain training transfer to intelligence and achievement?
- Explicit vs reform/constructivist math instruction
- Does matching instruction to a child's "learning style" improve learning?
- Manipulatives and concrete-representational-abstract (CRA) sequences
- Math curriculum choice — how much does the textbook matter?
- Math-fact fluency and timed practice (and the anti-timed-test claims)
- Brain Gym, Whole Brain Teaching, and the smaller classroom brain fads
- Does teaching movement transfer to cognition, achievement, or lifelong activity?
- Feedback frequency and mental practice in motor learning
- Practice scheduling for motor skills — varied vs blocked, spaced vs massed
- Should Gardner's multiple intelligences be used as a basis for instruction?
- Phonemic awareness training (and whether it needs letters)
- Systematic/explicit phonics vs whole language and balanced literacy
- Reading-comprehension strategy instruction (reciprocal teaching, summarizing, questioning)
- Reading fluency — guided repeated oral reading, and whether repetition matters
- Reading Recovery and Tier-2 1:1 early-literacy tutoring
- Word problems, schema instruction, and the conceptual-vs-procedural question
- Early sport specialization, talent selection, and the relative age effect
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