Explore the evidence

14 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 — sight-reading, performance and aural skill move about half a standard deviation under instruction — but the evidence is quasi-experimental and thinner than the transfer literature built on top of it.

moderate supportconf: mediumgc: medium

6/636/48connected:Does learning music make children Feedback and formative assessment Feedback frequency and mental prac Deliberate practice and the 10,000+2

Does teaching music produce musical skill? · music · ages 4–18

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

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: medium

19/1936/48connected:Brain Gym, Whole Brain Teaching, a Does teaching music produce musica Fadeout

Does learning music make children smarter or better at school? · music · ages 4–16

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 sequencing Explicit instruction vs discovery/Laboratory and practical work in s Teaching 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 concept Inquiry-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

Narrow reasoning routines are teachable and stay taught for seven months. The far-transfer claim failed its one randomised test: science −0.01, English −0.15, maths −0.11.

no effectconf: mediumgc: low

14/1412/48connected:Inquiry-based science teaching vs

Teaching students to think scientifically — does it transfer? · science · ages 7–18

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 vocabular Interleaving (mixing problem types Explicit 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.