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
what are these? →
sortconfidencerobustfragileA–Z
domain
verdict
confidence
layer
Your situation · from the applicability layer — absence means “not yet assessed,” never “doesn’t apply”
who's delivering
group / setting
cost
outcome class

Feedback on the task helps modestly; feedback on the person backfires — a stable third of studies reverse. The famous 0.4–0.7 number has no computed source.

mixedconf: highgc: low
18/1812/48connected:Retrieval practice (the testing efDoes teaching music produce musicaPlacement and mastery diagnosis

Feedback and formative assessment · feedback · ages 5–18 · method

Teaching movement teaches movement: the skills improve, but transfer to cognition, achievement, or lifelong activity is near zero in the best trials.

no effectconf: highgc: medium
7/710/48connected:Does arts education raise academicPhysical activity as an inputDoes teaching grammar improve chilDoes handwriting and transcription+5

Does teaching movement transfer to cognition, achievement, or lifelong activity? · physical-development · ages 4–18

Selective CTE high schools raise male graduation 8-10pp and early-career earnings 17-35% on lottery and cutoff designs; test scores, degrees, and every outcome for girls are flat.

moderate supportconf: mediumgc: low
19/1948/48connected:Ability grouping and tracking

Do career and technical education tracks help students — and which students? · practical · ages 14–18

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 assessmentMastery learning (teach → test → r

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

Life-skills courses reliably teach the content and rarely change the conduct; behaviour moves only where instruction sits close in time to the decision, and driver education is worse than nothing.

mixedconf: mediumgc: low
11/1148/48

Do life-skills courses — money, cooking, driving, health — change what students actually do? · practical · ages 6–18

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

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