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
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Your situation · from the applicability layer — absence means “not yet assessed,” never “doesn’t apply”
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Most measured 'home environment' effects are parents' genes: three-quarters of parent-child transmission isn't rearing, and a whole better childhood buys ~4 IQ points.

mixedconf: highgc: low
12/1236/48connected:The parent as instructor

The early home environment — what parents can and cannot causally move · early-childhood · ages 4–10 · input

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

debunkedconf: highgc: low
13/1321/48connected:Brain Gym, Whole Brain Teaching, a

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

Outdoor time prevents myopia from starting (not progressing); screening plus free glasses raises test scores in children who need them. Two claims, both real.

moderate supportconf: mediumgc: low
17/1736/48

Vision — outdoor time against myopia, and screening and correction for achievement · health · ages 4–18 · input

Correcting a real deficiency moves cognition (iron in anaemic children: 0.79 SD); supplementing already-fed children moves nothing (35 RCTs, 19,343 children).

mixedconf: mediumgc: low
20/2018/48connected:Does teaching movement transfer to

Breakfast, school meals, and micronutrients — what feeding children actually buys · health · ages 4–18 · input

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
4/43/48connected: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
11/1120/48connected:Does teaching visual art produce aDoes matching instruction to a chiDoes working-memory or brain trainDoes 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.