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

Matching instruction to 'learning styles' does nothing: real matching experiments return d=.04. The correlational literature IS the myth.

debunkedconf: highgc: low

13/1324/48connected:Brain Gym, Whole Brain Teaching, a

Does matching instruction to a child's "learning style" improve learning? · debunked · ages 4–18 · debunked

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

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

Never operationalised well enough to test: no MI-based trial meets even a loose evidential bar. Four decades in, a valid evaluation is still impossible.

insufficientconf: mediumgc: medium

4/412/48connected:Does teaching movement transfer to

Should Gardner's multiple intelligences be used as a basis for instruction? · debunked · ages 4–18 · debunked

Brain Gym, Fast ForWord, coloured overlays, the Mozart effect: tested and failed, or never evidence-based at all. Mozart works exactly as well as any other music.

debunkedconf: mediumgc: low

11/1118/48connected:Does teaching visual art produce a Does matching instruction to a chi Does working-memory or brain train Does learning music make children

Brain Gym, Whole Brain Teaching, and the smaller classroom brain fads · debunked · ages 4–18 · debunked

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