Since the 1990s, there have been repeated calls for the systematic use of randomised controlled trials (RCTs) to inform educational decision-making. The advent of the Education Endowment Foundation (EEF) -- described as England's What Works Centre for Education -- in 2011 has made this a reality in England: by 2020, over a third of English schools…

In the past few decades, we have seen a rapid proliferation in the use of quasi-experimental research designs in education research. This trend, stemming in part from the "credibility revolution" in the social sciences, particularly economics, is notable along with the increasing use of randomized controlled trials in the strive toward…

Educational stakeholders are keen to know the magnitude and importance of different interventions. However, the way evidence is communicated to support understanding of the effectiveness of an intervention is controversial. Typically studies in education have used the standardised mean difference as a measure of the impact of interventions. This…

Multisite trials, in which individuals are randomly assigned to alternative treatment arms within sites, offer an excellent opportunity to estimate the cross-site average effect of treatment assignment (intent to treat or ITT) "and" the amount by which this impact varies across sites. Although both of these statistics are substantively…

As evidence becomes increasingly important in educational policy, it is essential to understand how research design might contribute to reported effect sizes in experiments evaluating educational programs. A total of 645 studies from 12 recent reviews of evaluations of preschool, reading, mathematics, and science programs were studied. Effect…

This systematic descriptive historical review was conducted to examine the status and trends in expository text structure instruction efficacy research for first through twelfth grade students. The analysis included sixty studies, which spanned the years 1978 to 2014. Descriptive dimensions of the research included study type, research design,…

This publication contains 12 (A3 open-out) poster-style reports of teacher experimental research. The style of presentation parallels the type of preliminary reporting common at academic conferences and postgraduate events. At the same time, it aims to act as a form of short primer to introduce teachers to the basic options that there are when…