This week’s “Question Of The Week” at my Education Week Teacher blog relates to how we can tell the difference between good and bad education research. As a supplement to next week’s response on that issue, I wanted to bring together some helpful resources that might be understandable to other teachers and me.
You might also be interested in these related “The Best…” lists:
The Best Places To Get Reliable, Valid, Accessible & Useful Education Data
The Best Posts & Articles To Learn About “Fundamental Attribution Error” & Schools
Here are my choices for The Best Resources For Understanding How To Interpret Education Research:
A primer on navigating education claims by Paul Thomas.
Matthew Di Carlo at the Shanker Blog has written quite a few good posts on the topic:
In Research, What Does A “Significant Effect” Mean?
Revisiting The CREDO Charter School Analysis
Our Annual Testing Data Charade
The Education Reporter’s Dilemma
A Policymaker’s Primer on Education Research: How to Understand, Evaluate and Use It is from the Mid-continent Research for Education and Learning (McREL). Here’s a non-PDF version.
School Finance 101 often does great data analysis. Bruce Baker’s posts there, though, tend to be a little more challenging to the layperson, but it’s still definitely a must-visit blog.
Here’s a related post:
Hey, Researchers and Policymakers: Pay Attention to the Questions Teachers Ask is by Larry Cuban.
What Counts as a Big Effect? (I) is by Aaron Pallas. I’m adding it to The Best Resources For Understanding How To Interpret Education Research. Thanks to Scott McLeod for the tip, who also wrote a related post.
Why “Evidence-Based” Education Fails is by Paul Thomas.
How to Judge if Research is Trustworthy is by Audrey Watters.
The “Journal of Errology” has a very funny post titled What it means when it says …. Here’s a sample:
“It has long been known” means “I didn’t look up the original reference”
“It is believed that” means “I think”
“It is generally believed that” means “A couple of others think so, too”
Value-Added Versus Observations, Part One: Reliability is from The Shanker Blog.
Understand Uncertainty in Program Effects is a report by Sarah Sparks over at Education Week.
Limitations of Education Studies is by Walt Gardner at Education Week.
More Evidence of Statistical Dodginess in Psychology? is from The Wall Street Journal.
How To Tell Good Science From Bad is by Daniel Willingham.
When You Hear Claims That Policies Are Working, Read The Fine Print is from The Shanker Blog.
Esoteric Formulas and Educational Research is from Walt Gardner at Education Week.
Effect Size Matters in Educational Research is by Robert Slavin.
Beware Of “Breakthrough” Education Research is by Paul Bruno.
Why Nobody Wins In The Education “Research Wars” is from The Shanker Blog.
Why it’s caveat emptor when it comes to some educational research is by Tom Bennett.
Six Ways to Separate Lies From Statistics is from Bloomberg News.
Additional suggestions are welcome.
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You might also want to explore the 800 other “The Best…” lists I’ve compiled.
