The Evidence on Teaching

Explore the evidence

7 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

Curriculum is nearly free, so choosing beats not choosing — but the payoff is avoiding a demonstrated loser, not finding a magic winner. Content is the high-upside bet.

mixedconf: highgc: low

9/927/48connected:Background knowledge and vocabular Science content sequencing

Curriculum choice as a school-level lever · curriculum · ages 4–14 · structure

Content-rich history teaching raises history knowledge (g 0.19-0.46) but not standardized reading in under three years; generic 'historical thinking' has no adequately controlled positive result.

moderate supportconf: mediumgc: low

17/1730/48connected:Background knowledge and vocabular Does document-based source work mo

Should history be built on content knowledge or on generic historical-thinking skills? · history-civics · ages 5–18

Civics teaching buys civic knowledge (d = 0.49) that fades to the control mean in two years and moves neither attitudes nor validated turnout; what moves voting is school quality and noncognitive skill.

mixedconf: mediumgc: low

19/1936/48

Does civic education produce civic knowledge, and does civic knowledge produce civic behaviour? · history-civics · ages 5–18

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: low

13/1310/48connected:Should history be built on content

Does document-based source work move history knowledge, reading comprehension, or neither? · history-civics · ages 8–18

What parents are asked to DO is the whole effect: tutoring a skill d≈1.15, listening to reading 0.51, reading aloud ~0.18 — same parent, same child. All deflate under better designs.

mixedconf: mediumgc: medium

33/3336/48connected:Homeschool socialisation Does homeschooling raise achieveme The early home environment Tutoring

The parent as instructor — what survives when the person teaching is the person who raised the child · homeschool · ages 4–18 · method

No study of homeschooling has a counterfactual — the famous percentile claims are selection all the way down. The honest answer: nobody knows.

insufficientconf: lowgc: high

23/2336/48connected:Homeschool socialisation The parent as instructor Systematic/explicit phonics vs who Math-fact fluency and timed practi

Does homeschooling raise achievement and attainment, or does it select the children who would have done well anyway? · homeschool · ages 5–18 · structure

Homeschoolers get plenty of social contact but measurably fewer, closer peer ties; whether that helps or harms has never been causally tested.

insufficientconf: lowgc: high

23/2324/48connected:Does homeschooling raise achieveme The parent as instructor

Homeschool socialisation — the most-asked question, and the least answerable one · homeschool · ages 6–18 · structure

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