Evaluating intervention strategies and educational research using EEF toolkit.
Another recent discovery from the training I attended yesterday is the Education Endowment Foundation (EEF) website. We looked at the Family of Schools section for data comparison, which I'll blog about later, but there's also an interesting area of their site called the Teaching and Learning Toolkit, which aims to provide "an accessible summary of educational research". I've only had a brief poke around so far, but it seems to be quite a good idea - it's difficult to find the time to search for educational research independently.
One of the most interesting things on there is a comparison of effects of various classroom and additional interventions on achievement, with costs of these various interventions and strategies factored in. It's informed by research (although the site does point out that some strategies have limited research available), and you can check the evidence base for each judgement by clicking on the strategy.
One of the most interesting things on there is a comparison of effects of various classroom and additional interventions on achievement, with costs of these various interventions and strategies factored in. It's informed by research (although the site does point out that some strategies have limited research available), and you can check the evidence base for each judgement by clicking on the strategy.
In the screenshot above, I ranked by impact (low to high), and it's interesting to see that one of the only two strategies that have negative impact (i.e. actually cause regression rather than progress) is setting/streaming. Reading more about this topic explains more about the research that has been done, namely that high-attaining pupils are positively affected by setting (making an average of 1 or 2 months more progress than in mixed groups), but that low-attaining pupils are negatively affected by at least the same amount. Obviously setting is a massive can of worms and I'm not even sure how I feel about it, but it's worth bearing this in mind.
One-to-one tuition adds an average of five months of progress, which seems a bit of a no-brainer. Interestingly, homework also adds exactly the same amount on average, provided it was useful, linked to classwork and effective feedback was given. It's also really nice to see that mastery had the same impact (+5 months), particularly as I'm so invested in the mastery curriculum idea with our current KS3.
Small group tuition also provided decent gains (+4 months), provided the group size is sufficiently small and work is targeted to specific needs. Evidence seems to suggest that group sizes of greater than 6 or 7 reduces the effectiveness.
It's worth having a look at and playing around with; I don't know whether this will stimulate any huge national shifts in strategies used in schools - after all, most secondaries still set, despite years of evidence to the contrary, but it provides interesting reading all the same.
One-to-one tuition adds an average of five months of progress, which seems a bit of a no-brainer. Interestingly, homework also adds exactly the same amount on average, provided it was useful, linked to classwork and effective feedback was given. It's also really nice to see that mastery had the same impact (+5 months), particularly as I'm so invested in the mastery curriculum idea with our current KS3.
Small group tuition also provided decent gains (+4 months), provided the group size is sufficiently small and work is targeted to specific needs. Evidence seems to suggest that group sizes of greater than 6 or 7 reduces the effectiveness.
It's worth having a look at and playing around with; I don't know whether this will stimulate any huge national shifts in strategies used in schools - after all, most secondaries still set, despite years of evidence to the contrary, but it provides interesting reading all the same.
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