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Two fallacies to avoid

Aug 14, 2017 | Category: research

Avoiding logical fallacies can be tricky and, as responses to some of my recent posts has made clear, anyone who spends time debating evolutionary psychology, behaviour genetics or science in general...

#behaviour genetics #Matt Ridley #moralistic fallacy #naturalistic fallacy

Do schools matter less than we think?

Aug 12, 2017 | Category: research

Disturbingly for all of us involved in education, it seems as if schools and teaching may matter a lot less than we would like to believe. Before setting out the arguments I want to make it clear that...

#heritability #behaviour genetics #non shared environment #school

What causes behaviour?

Aug 10, 2017 | Category: research

The age-old debate as to what causes human behaviour - nature vs nurture - shows little sign of running out of steam, despite having been emphatically resolved as far as science is concerned. Althoug...

#research #heritability #evidence #Joseph Carroll #science

Are you fooling yourself? Education and epidemiology

Apr 29, 2017 | Category: research

Science is a way of trying not to fool yourself. The first principle is that you must not fool yourself, and you are the easiest person to fool. - Richard Feynman Epidemiology is the science of tryi...

#falsifiability #autism #correlation #epidemiology

What do teachers think differentiation is?

Apr 24, 2017 | Category: research

In Why Knowledge Matters, ED Hirsch Jr sets out the case against differentiated instruction, saying, "the attempt to individualize the content of the language arts curriculum has been a quixotic idea...

#differentiation #PISA #adaptive instruction

What do teachers believe?

Mar 16, 2017 | Category: research

It's well-established that various 'myths' about how students' learn are remarkably persistent in the face of contradictory evidence. In 2014, Paul Howard-Jones' article, Neuroscience and education: m...

#learning styles #Jo Boaler #neuromyths #Paul Howard-Jones

Unprofessional misjudgement

Mar 01, 2017 | Category: research

No, I’m not using evidence, but I’m not using prejudice either. I am exercising my professional judgement.Sue CowleyIt doesn’t make a difference how beautiful your guess is. It doesn’t make a differen...

#Ben Goldacre #EEF #Ignaz Semmelweis #Sue Cowley

Evidence and disadvantage: How useful is the EEF Toolkit?

Feb 26, 2017 | Category: research

Although everyone's education is important, the education of disadvantaged students is, arguably, of much greater importance than that of students from more advantaged backgrounds. The more privileged...

#learning styles #John Tomsett #Education Endowment Foundation #Greg Ashman #ED Hirsch Jr #Sir Kevan Collins

Can all of learning be summed up by test scores?

Feb 12, 2017 | Category: research

Contrary to popular opinion, I'm not all that bothered about test scores. I mean, obviously I'd far prefer pupils did well rather than poorly on a summative exam, particularly if it is likely to have...

#divergent thinking #test scores

The power of 'best bets'

Jan 15, 2017 | Category: research

The other day I read Greg Ashman's post Why Education is like smoking which talked about the way teachers often generalise from anecdotes in the same way that when smokers are confronted with statisti...

#Greg Ashman #Gary Davis #Wolfgang Pauli