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

Physical capacity is about as heritable as cognitive ability (~60%, no shared environment). Whether trainability is a stable trait remains unproven — the skeptics are winning.

strong supportconf: highgc: low

14/1436/48connected:How should a school run its classr Does working-memory or brain train Can executive function be trained,Does teaching a growth mindset rai+4

Talent and trainability — what is heritable, and what that does not license · talent · ages 4–18 · input

Mastery learning moves tests of what it taught (~0.25) and barely moves independent measures (~0.05) — and time-to-mastery gaps widen, converting ability differences into time.

mixedconf: highgc: low

6/69/48connected:Does educational technology raise Retrieval practice (the testing ef Placement and mastery diagnosis

Mastery learning (teach → test → reteach to criterion → advance) · mastery · ages 6–18 · method

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.