1 min read
The Big Evidence Debate – Catch Up
On Tuesday 4th June 2019 we held the first ever Big Evidence Debate. Leading educational experts Dylan Wiliam and Larry Hedges gave fascinating...
Meta-analysis
5 min read
Is meta-analysis all just ‘an exercise in mega-silliness’?
To my mind, there was something heroic about Gene Glass’ presidential address to the 1976 American Educational Research Association annual meeting....
5 min read
Meta-analysis: Don’t do it or Do it more carefully?
Meta-analyses (like the popular Sutton Trust Tool Kit and Hattie’s Visible Learning) apparently offer a more sophisticated and orderly approach to...
5 min read
Is meta-analysis the best we can do?
By Professor Steve Higgins Is meta-analysis in its current state trustworthy enough to be a basis for practitioner decisions? It all depends on what...
3 min read
The Big Evidence Debate: Introducing the 50% rule
As a news editor, I developed my own 50% rule: reporters should spend as much time writing their stories as getting the stories in the first place....
3 min read
Meta-analyses and the making of an evidence-informed profession
Before entering into a broader discussion about the use of meta-analysis in school decision-making, it’s worth appreciating just how far teaching has...
4 min read
Systematic reviews and meta-analyses – what’s all the fuss?
Should we be using systematic reviews and meta-analyses as teachers and school leaders to support the decisions we make, or is that a luxury? How do...
3 min read
Where is the value in meta-analysis?
Before I trained as a teacher, I worked as a researcher, investigating the effect of phytoplankton processes in the ocean. It appeared that in...
2 min read
Comparing apples with oranges
How do you compare apples with oranges? Or even apples with oranges with cherries with bananas with peaches? This isn’t a joke question that has a...
2 min read
The Big Evidence Debate
Meta-analysis involves the aggregation of data from existing studies that share key features, in order to create a summary that reflects all the...