A potentially useful service is being offered up by the What Works Clearinghouse — “quick reviews” to help educators grasp the soundness of research studies that have made news.
“There are all kinds of studies coming out daily that are cutting-edge,” Mark Dynarski, tells Education Week. “The idea is whether the clearinghouse can help the public in determining whether studies are well crafted, if they use sound methods and make good inferences.”
The Clearinghouse’s quick reviews offer three possible ratings: “consistent with WWC evidence standards,” “consistent with WWC evidence standards with reservations, or “not consistent with WWC evidence standards” —the lowest of three possible ratings.
For example, a recent study in the Journal of Policy Analysis and Management looked at the affects the behavior and academic performance of sixth graders who are placed in middle school instead of elementary school and conclude they are about twice as likely to have a disciplinary problems as sixth graders in elementary schools. The WWC’s quick review noted reservations about the results “because they may be affected by differences between the research groups that were not controlled for in the analysis.”
Wonder what they’d make of the Canadian fitness study…
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