Part III: Building What Works
Chapter 14
Proving It: Efficacy and Evidence
Every education-technology company claims its product improves learning. Few can show it to a standard that would persuade a sceptical researcher. This chapter explains how education evidence is produced and judged, why sample size and clustering decide what a study can detect, and how to read efficacy claims. Appendix A works through the cost-effectiveness and sample-size arithmetic for two stylized interventions.
The preview ends here. The full chapter is in the book.
In this chapter
- 14.1The ESSA evidence tiers
- 14.2Designs from strongest to weakest
- 14.3Effect sizes and what inflates them
- 14.4Power, clustering and the minimum detectable effect
- 14.5The selection trap in usage studies
- 14.6The evidence institutions
- 14.7What the landmark studies teach
- 14.8Evidence as a staged portfolio