Evidence-Based Education (EBE)

Evidence–based education (EBE) is the assimilation of the highest–quality empirical evidence and professional wisdom to make informed decisions about educational practices, programs, and policies. At the level of practice, evidence–based education is a systematic attempt to encourage professionals to move away from reliance on personal experience as the primary basis for making decisions and toward incorporating research results. The focus on enhanced use of evidence became especially pronounced with the implementation of the No Child Left Behind (2001) legislation, which required that educators use evidence to ground instructional practices.

The field of education has often been criticized for following fads and trends that have great intuitive appeal but little or no empirical support. In 1972, the National Institute of Education (NIE) was established to provide national leadership by introducing scientific inquiry into the educational process. Gradually, most of the NIE's responsibilities were moved to the U.S. Department of Education's Office of Educational Research and Improvement (OERI), and more recently, in 2002 when President George W. Bush signed the Education Sciences Reform Act, to the Institute of Education Sciences. Along with the passage of the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) in 2001 and the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) in 2004, considerable emphasis has been placed on the topic of evidence–based education and measures related to the use of empirical evidence in education, like scientifically based research.

Although primarily based on the principles of evidence–based medicine, which has led to more effective treatment of patients, evidence–based education also pulls from fields such as psychology, sociology, criminology, neuroscience, and economics to offer the means to systematically improve educational interventions. The ultimate goal of evidence–based education is to create a cycle in which research moves seamlessly to influence practice. The effective practice of evidence–based education, therefore, requires a methodical commitment to supporting efforts to conduct high–quality research, establishing a process to effectively critique the research, and efficiently disseminating the research at all levels. Parents, practitioners, teacher trainers, policymakers, and researchers can become better consumers by developing their ability to analyze school–based problems and investigate evidence–based solutions.

Considerable debate is occurring over what constitutes high–quality research, with some suggesting that a simple hierarchy of research designs exists beginning with randomized trial at the top, to quasi–experimental research, correlational studies, case studies, and finally anecdotal evidence at the bottom. Although a continuum such as this generally outlines the strongest to weakest ways of establishing causality (e.g., What type of intervention increases students' reading scores?), it also minimizes both the variety of problems that schools face and the complexity of the school environment. To pursue evidence–based education effectively, the field must rely on a wide range of research methodologies and both the collective and local professional wisdom.

A wide range of research methodology is necessary because the answers to the important questions are best sought in different ways. When the National Academy of Sciences established a committee to investigate the status of research in education, it determined that most research questions in education are: (a) descriptive, (b) casual, or (c) process or mechanism. A descriptive question like, “What is happening?” may best be answered with surveys or focus groups. A causal question like, “Is there a systemic effect?” is often best answered with quantitative experimental methodology. A process or mechanism question like, “Why or how is this happening?” can be answered with a wide variety of quantitative or qualitative methodology. Researchers frequently select the best methodology when attempting to answer a specific research question before conducting an investigation and disseminating the results in the [Page 358]professional literature and at professional conferences. To pursue evidence–based education, however, teachers and administrators must further develop their skills to investigate school–based issues empirically, such as making decisions about which curriculum to adopt, deciding whether their schoolwide behavior support plan is effective, or understanding how to compare students' progress to federal, state, and local benchmarks and making appropriate instructional changes.

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