The Evidence on Teaching

Explore the evidence

6 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

Smaller classes buy real K-1 gains that fade on tests yet persist in attainment — at roughly triple tutoring's cost, and diluted to nothing when scaled fast.

mixedconf: highgc: low
7/748/48connected:TutoringDoes educational technology raise Teacher quality

Class-size reduction · class-size · ages 4–18 · structure

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

A missed day costs little (~0.005 SD); interventions reliably buy days back cheaply, but nobody has shown the recovered days move achievement.

mixedconf: mediumgc: medium
14/1439/48

Chronic absenteeism — does raising attendance raise achievement? · time · ages 4–18 · input

Taking time away hurts measurably; adding it back buys almost nothing. The return per hour is ~0.02-0.03 SD, concave, and near zero in disorderly classrooms.

mixedconf: mediumgc: low
23/2338/48

Length of the school day and year, time-on-task, extended time, and summer · time · ages 4–18 · structure

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.