Explore the evidence

13 of 88 decisions · clear everything

Survives the gold standard Independent, durable, rigorous The debunked shelf Cheap wins For parents at home Famous numbers, deflated Where we admit ignorance The terrain

evidenceall drop D A–B A only

evaluatorany no dev-led independent

durabilityany follow-up ≥1yr ≥2yr

what are these? →

Your situation · from the applicability layer — absence means “not yet assessed,” never “doesn’t apply”

who's delivering

group / setting

cost

outcome class

Timed retrieval practice builds arithmetic automaticity — beating identical untimed tutoring head-to-head — and the anti-timed-test harm claims have no causal evidence.

strong supportconf: highgc: low

7/711/48connected:Does homeschooling raise achieveme Spaced (distributed) practice Word problems, schema instruction,

Math-fact fluency and timed practice (and the anti-timed-test claims) · math · ages 5–12

Minimal-guidance math trailed every rival in the one multi-curriculum RCT; explicit instruction for strugglers is math's most replicated result.

moderate supportconf: highgc: low

10/1021/48connected:Explicit instruction vs discovery/

Explicit vs reform/constructivist math instruction · math · ages 5–18

Word-problem solving is its own skill: computation fluency doesn't produce it. Teaching problem schemas explicitly does (~0.25–0.45 SD on trained content).

moderate supportconf: highgc: low

7/78/48connected:Math-fact fluency and timed practi Worked examples (studying solution

Word problems, schema instruction, and the conceptual-vs-procedural question · math · ages 6–14

Neither acceleration mandates nor delay mandates work — readiness-matched placement does. Push everyone and the median falls; hold everyone back and the top falls.

mixedconf: highgc: low

9/936/48connected:Acceleration and gifted programs School starting age, relative age,

Algebra timing — acceleration mandates, delay mandates, and readiness-based placement · math · ages 11–18

The textbook matters at the bottom, not the top: avoid the demonstrated losers; mainstream choices now differ by ~0.02 SD.

mixedconf: highgc: low

11/1124/48connected:Background knowledge and vocabular School spending, charters, and wha

Math curriculum choice — how much does the textbook matter? · math · ages 5–14

Yes, on their own terms: lottery-assigned museum and theatre trips move blind-rated analysis of art, plot knowledge and tolerance by 0.08-0.18 SD weeks later, and a film of the same play moves nothing.

moderate supportconf: mediumgc: low

4/414/48connected:Does arts education raise academic Does teaching visual art produce a

Are museum and theatre trips worth the day out of school? · arts · ages 8–18

Teaching coding teaches coding: the one clean school RCT gives g=0.47-0.68. Which approach you pick barely matters, and almost every effect size rests on an instrument the developers built.

moderate supportconf: mediumgc: low

22/2225/48connected:Does learning to code improve gene Talent and trainability

Does teaching programming actually teach programming — and does the method matter? · computer-science · ages 5–18

Manipulatives help when bland, guided, and aged ~7–11 — a guided-representation effect, not 'hands-on learning.' Rich, toy-like objects hurt transfer.

moderate supportconf: mediumgc: low

3/36/48

Manipulatives and concrete-representational-abstract (CRA) sequences · math · ages 5–14

The headline effects are a measurement artefact: drama gives d≈0.89 on researcher-made tests and d≈0.29 on standardized ones, and the two randomised trials with standardized outcomes are null.

mixedconf: mediumgc: medium

7/715/48connected:Does arts education raise academic

Does classroom drama build verbal and literacy skills? · arts · ages 5–16

Sort by what the software replaces: adaptive drill inside the school day buys +0.05-0.20 SD; a device, a connection or the teacher buys zero to negative; LLM tutors have no usable evidence at all.

mixedconf: mediumgc: low

53/5339/48connected:Placement and mastery diagnosis Mastery learning (teach → test → r Tutoring Class-size reduction

Does educational technology raise learning — CAI, adaptive software, devices, screens, and AI tutors? · edtech · ages 5–18 · structure

Near-zero in primary and almost entirely correlational in secondary. The causal base is three small trials; what the homework IS beats how much of it there is.

mixedconf: mediumgc: medium

16/1629/48

Homework — effects by age and by dosage · homework · ages 5–18 · structure

No. The two randomised programmes that tested it — 42 Houston schools and five EEF trials across 400 English schools — return nulls on reading and maths; only writing, the outcome nearest the treatment, moves.

no effectconf: mediumgc: low

4/49/48connected:Does teaching movement transfer to Does teaching visual art produce a Are museum and theatre trips worth Does classroom drama build verbal

Does arts education raise academic achievement? · arts · ages 5–14

Nobody has tested it. There is no controlled trial in which art instruction is the input and independently measured art skill is the outcome — the field's core claim is the one it never studied.

insufficientconf: lowgc: medium

6/618/48connected:Does arts education raise academic Brain Gym, Whole Brain Teaching, a Are museum and theatre trips worth

Does teaching visual art produce artistic skill? · arts · ages 4–18

The URL is the state — any view you build here is a permalink you can hand to someone mid-argument.