The Evidence on Teaching

Explore the evidence

7 of 88 decisions · clear everything

Survives the gold standardIndependent, durable, rigorousThe debunked shelfCheap winsFor parents at homeFamous numbers, deflatedWhere we admit ignoranceThe terrain
evidencealldrop DA–BA only
evaluatoranyno dev-ledindependent
durabilityanyfollow-up≥1yr≥2yr
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Your situation · from the applicability layer — absence means “not yet assessed,” never “doesn’t apply”
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Grit is conscientiousness renamed and adds 0.4% to grade prediction; self-control genuinely predicts life outcomes but is 60% heritable with zero shared environment, and training moves ratings, not lives.

mixedconf: highgc: medium
20/2036/48connected:Should a school buy a social and eDoes teaching a growth mindset raiHow should a school run its classr

Are self-control and grit teachable levers on achievement? · character · ages 4–18

Growth-mindset interventions change beliefs almost everywhere and change achievement almost nowhere: the two independent national-scale trials measured standardized tests and found exactly zero.

mixedconf: highgc: low
18/1829/48connected:FadeoutSystematic/explicit phonics vs whoTalent and trainabilityAre self-control and grit teachabl

Does teaching a growth mindset raise achievement? · character · ages 4–18

SEL programmes move the ratings they are evaluated on far more than the attainment they are sold on: the famous +0.27 is now 0.10, and no large independent trial has reproduced it on an externally marked test.

mixedconf: highgc: low
19/1948/48connected:Are self-control and grit teachablHow should a school run its classr

Should a school buy a social and emotional learning programme? · character · ages 4–18

Guided inquiry is positive in 16 of 16 PISA regions and unguided inquiry negative in 18 of 20 — but the programmes built on that finding go to zero at scale: +0.22, then +0.01, then +0.02 on the same test.

mixedconf: mediumgc: low
19/1927/48connected:Science content sequencingExplicit instruction vs discovery/Laboratory and practical work in sTeaching students to think scienti

Inquiry-based science teaching vs explicit and textbook science teaching · science · ages 8–18

Two reviews screened ~12,000 records and found one RCT and six quasi-experiments. What evidence exists favours interest (+0.12) over attainment (+0.01), and simulations match real apparatus.

mixedconf: mediumgc: low
22/2221/48connected:Science misconceptions and conceptInquiry-based science teaching vs

Laboratory and practical work in school science · science · ages 5–18

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: low
10/1017/48connected:Laboratory and practical work in s

Science misconceptions and conceptual change — can naive intuitions be taught away? · science · ages 6–18

No trial has ever varied the sequence of science content and measured the result. The one quasi-experimental test of course order found nothing, and depth-over-breadth is a retrospective survey worth 0.08-0.13 SD.

insufficientconf: mediumgc: medium
15/1515/48connected:Background knowledge and vocabularInterleaving (mixing problem typesExplicit instruction vs discovery/Inquiry-based science teaching vs +1

Science content sequencing — coherence, prerequisites, and course order · science · ages 5–18

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