The Evidence on Teaching

Explore the evidence

8 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

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

Diagnose what a child already knows: teachers cut 40–50% of curriculum for high-ability children and achievement ROSE. The payoff is skipping, not monitoring.

moderate supportconf: mediumgc: medium

16/1625/48connected:Does educational technology raise Feedback and formative assessment Mastery learning (teach → test → r

Placement and mastery diagnosis — deciding what to teach next from evidence of current skill · assessment · ages 5–18 · structure

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

Coaching buys ~0.25 SD of score and has for 42 years — a fraction of what's advertised — and none of it is ability. The score moves; the construct doesn't.

mixedconf: mediumgc: medium

20/2036/48

Test preparation — does coaching raise scores, and does a raised score mean raised ability? · assessment · ages 5–18 · structure

Trust the composite; distrust the breakdown. Subtest strengths-and-weaknesses replicate at chance on retest, and most of what people read off a score report is noise.

mixedconf: mediumgc: low

21/2124/48

What a standardized achievement score does and does not license · assessment · 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.